Yes and no. Most of the time, it’s just easier to use the terms synonymously. We’re pretty laid back here at One Floor Up, so you can call our work whatever you want as long as it delivers. We’re creative and efficient, so for efficiency’s sake, I’ll try to explain the similarities and differences between motion graphics and animation with a basic geometry analogy.

Every square is a rectangle, but not every rectangle is a square. Remember that from 7th grade?

In the same way, a motion graphic is always an animation, but not every animation is a motion graphic. Simple right?

ANIMATION

Animation is the manipulation of an image over multiple frames in order to create a sequence of moving images. This all-encompassing art form can be stop motion, hand-drawn, computer generated, and so on. Here is a great example of a stop motion animation we recently did for The Central Asia Institute.

Motion Graphics

Just think animated graphic design. It’s really not much more complicated than that. A motion graphic can be overlayed on top of footage or exist as its own video. Here’s a great example of a motion graphic we did for the Denver Film Society.

Ahhh brevity. The soul of a good blog post. 

You can likely get a much better definition of the differences between animations and motion graphics online, but that’s not why you’re here. If you want to learn about all the gritty details, give us a call for a chat we’d love to flex our knowledge and talk about your next project.