Our whiteboard animation for CIRAD.
This post has been written by our Senior Creative Sarah Verrall. Sarah is a talented Senior Creative and Animator, and has brought the stories of many clients to the screen. Together with Illustrator Patience Nottingham and Animator Jackie Miller, they have explained the work of CIRAD and their ImpresS ex post and ImpresS ex ante initiatives. In this post, Sarah reflects on the experience.
CIRAD are passionate about making agricultural research increasingly collaborative, with long-term impacts. Together, we created this whiteboard animation to explain the role of the ImpresS approach in making CIRAD’s mission a reality. Visit the CIRAD website for information about the ways ImpresS can shape more effective research interventions.
“What emerged from all of this was a fun and playful style, that was a pleasure to work in.”
- Sarah Verrall, Senior Creative
The first thing that struck me when we met with CIRAD to discuss the animation was the high regard that CIRAD hold their researchers in. Their passion for making research a more collaborative process was clear from the start. CIRAD shared some documents and some of their visual ideas.
The combination of these, and our conversation, gave our fantastic Illustrator Patience plenty of material to take inspiration from. What emerged from all of this was a fun and playful style, that was a pleasure to work in.
The story map for this film was very interesting to design. At the centre is the CIRAD logo, keeping them and their values at the heart of the big picture. The animation mentions ImpresS ex post and ImpresS ex ante, and we were keen to show that these were different initiatives. We made it clear that ex post is retrospective and ex ante offers a vision for the future of impactful research.
“…turning these key aspects of the film into charming moments with people at their core was one of my favourite moments in the project.”
- Sarah Verrall, Senior Creative
CIRAD’s forward facing view was a tone and energy I enjoyed working with, and we incorporated visuals like film reels to convey a snapshot of looking ahead. The ex ante four step approach played a huge part in this film, so we designed their process and charts to flow around the storymap. We always placed people at the heart of each step in the process map, to ensure the people that have shaped and benefitted from the research were represented at every stage. Doing this and turning these key aspects of the film into charming moments with people at their core was one of my favourite moments in the project.
“The first thing that struck me when we met with CIRAD to discuss the animation was the high regard that CIRAD hold their researchers in.”
- Sarah Verrall, Senior Creative
After talking to CIRAD and seeing their passion, we were keen to include nature and agriculture to highlight that this film is about research in the field and not in a laboratory or head office. We themed our visual thinking around lush vegetation and animals to make this connection clear to audiences, and to fully capture the essence of the work that CIRAD do.
CIRAD’s colour scheme of pink and green really gave the film a vibrant and fresh look, as well as strengthening their links visually with science and agriculture. It was great giving a nod to a couple of illustrations from the CIRAD documents. These documents gave us a good base to plan our visual thinking from. Jackie’s animation really brought the final illustrations to life.
It’s a delight to watch and I’m so pleased we could collaborate with the team at CIRAD.
Cognitive are award-winning pioneers of whiteboard animation, and the creators of the RSA Animates series. We help corporate, academic and charitable organisations like the BBC, TED, Coca Cola and Sanofi to tell their stories more powerfully. We’d love to supercharge your story, book a discovery call today!
Every explainer animation we create is a collaboration between us and our clients. Guided by each client’s essence, goals and message, we create scripted and visual storytelling that is informative, engaging, memorable and relatable. The result is a carefully crafted and bespoke explainer animation.