The Best Animation Styles for 2025

Animation is a versatile and powerful tool for creating engaging, memorable corporate & commercial content. With so many animation styles to choose from, it’s important to understand what each one offers and how it can align with your goals. The right style can simplify complex ideas, evoke emotion, or help your brand stand out.

If you’re looking to work with an animation studio then it’s important that you can clearly identify what style you’re after.

We’ve produced animated videos for over 15 years, so we know a thing or two about different animated styles. From 2D to Stop-Motion, we’ve done it all.

In this article, we’ll explore 10 versatile animation styles for 2025, highlighting their strengths and how they can be used effectively in corporate and advertising contexts.

Contents

2D Animation

3D Animation

Stop-Motion Animation

Motion Graphics

Hand-Drawn Animation

Collage Animation

Character Animation

Kinetic Typography

Mixed Media Animation

AI-Generated Animation

2D Animation

2D animation is a versatile and timeless medium, widely used in advertising, branding, and corporate communications. Its simplicity and accessibility make it ideal for telling stories, explaining complex ideas, or adding personality to campaigns. From playful, flat designs to intricate, hand-drawn animations, 2D allows for a wide range of animation styles tailored to different audiences.

This style is especially effective for explainer videos, where visuals can break down complex concepts into digestible content. Its clean, modern aesthetic fits well with digital-first strategies, while other styles like frame-by-frame animation offer a nostalgic, artisanal touch.

A key advantage of 2D animation is its cost-effectiveness and faster production times compared to more complex styles like 3D. Whether you’re introducing a new product or building a brand narrative, 2D animation remains a powerful tool for capturing attention and communicating with clarity and impact.

3D Animation

3D animation is all about depth, realism, and sophistication. Offering unparalleled visual impact, it’s a popular choice for high-end branding, product demonstrations, and immersive storytelling. With lifelike textures and dynamic camera movements, 3D can make concepts feel tangible and futuristic.

Brands often use 3D animation to showcase products in an engaging way, such as revealing intricate details through close-ups or creating immersive virtual environments. It’s also ideal for architectural visualisation, bringing spaces to life with realistic lighting and materials.

The rise of tools like real-time rendering has made 3D animation more accessible, enabling quicker turnaround times without compromising quality. Emerging trends include stylised 3D, blending artistic flair with technical precision, making this style suitable for both luxury and playful brands. While it often requires a higher investment, the impact of 3D animation can set brands apart, delivering visually stunning and memorable experiences.

Like 2D animation, 3D animation is a general term that can apply to a variety of different animation styles. From hyper-realistic to playful & cartoony, 3D can cover a wide range of aesthetics.

Stop-Motion Animation

Stop-motion animation offers a tactile, handcrafted aesthetic that stands out in a world of digital-first content. Using physical objects like clay, paper, or everyday items, this style brings a unique charm to storytelling. Each frame is meticulously captured to create seamless motion, lending a personal and artisanal quality to the final piece.

This animation style is especially effective for brands seeking to convey authenticity, creativity, or nostalgia. It’s often used in advertising campaigns for handmade or artisanal products, as the process mirrors the craftsmanship behind the brand. Stop-motion also resonates with audiences looking for something different from the polished visuals of digital animation.

Though labour-intensive, the result is highly distinctive and memorable. Advances in tools and techniques have made it easier to integrate stop-motion into broader animation workflows, combining traditional methods with digital enhancements for a truly one-of-a-kind result.

Hand-Drawn Animation

A hand-drawn animation style brings a distinctly modern aesthetic to the art of storytelling, blending a crafted, illustrative style with contemporary techniques. Unlike traditional or cel animation, which relies on painstaking frame-by-frame production, this approach utilises digital tools to replicate the hand-drawn look, giving it a fresh, sophisticated edge that appeals to today’s audiences.

Modern hand-drawn animation often features fluid, organic lines and textures, intentionally retaining imperfections to create an authentic and human feel. This aesthetic lends itself well to projects where artistic creativity and individuality are key, such as brand films, narrative-driven advertising, or animations aimed at emotionally engaging audiences.

Tools like Procreate, Adobe Animate, and Toon Boom Harmony have made this style more accessible, enabling animators to merge artistry with efficiency. The result is a vibrant, handcrafted aesthetic that feels contemporary while honouring the illustrative roots of animation.

Hand-drawn animation’s versatility makes it ideal for brands seeking to stand out with a bold yet intimate visual identity. It works seamlessly across industries, from fashion and lifestyle brands embracing a chic, illustrated aesthetic to tech companies looking to soften complex ideas with a personal touch. Whether used for storytelling or conceptual visuals, hand-drawn animation captures attention by combining artistry with modernity, offering something truly unique.

Collage Animation

Collage animation combines mixed media elements like cut-outs, textures, and photographs to create a visually eclectic style. This approach lends itself to playful, quirky, or vintage-inspired campaigns that stand out from more traditional animation styles.

Its layered, handcrafted aesthetic adds a personal touch to brand storytelling, making it ideal for companies looking to convey creativity and individuality. Collage animation is often used in advertising to showcase a brand’s unique personality or highlight artisanal products.

The flexibility of collage animation allows for endless experimentation, whether mixing textures with bold typography or combining live-action footage with hand-drawn elements. This style is particularly effective for social media content, where eye-catching visuals are crucial for engagement. As brands increasingly seek to differentiate themselves in saturated markets, collage animation offers a refreshing, artistic alternative.

Character Animation

Character animation brings stories and brands to life through relatable, expressive figures. This style focuses on animating characters, giving them distinct personalities and emotions that resonate with audiences. Whether it’s a brand mascot or a protagonist in a story-driven ad, characters help create a connection with viewers.

This style is particularly effective for storytelling campaigns, customer journey videos, and brand awareness projects. Character animation adds warmth and relatability, making even complex topics more approachable. For example, an animated character can guide viewers through a technical explainer or represent a customer solving a problem.

Advancements in animation tools have made it easier to create sophisticated character animations, including motion capture technology that ensures natural movement. As brands increasingly focus on humanising their messaging, character animation continues to be a powerful tool for fostering emotional engagement and enhancing storytelling.

Kinetic Typography

Kinetic typography animates text to convey messages dynamically and engagingly. By combining motion and typography, this style makes words the star of the show, drawing attention to key information and enhancing storytelling.

This animation style is highly versatile, working well in brand advertisements, promotional videos, and explainer content. It’s particularly effective for campaigns where concise messaging is crucial, such as product launches or social media teasers. Kinetic typography can add energy to otherwise static content, with text transitions, bold movements, and creative layouts keeping viewers hooked.

Recent trends include combining kinetic typography with audio, such as music or voiceovers, to amplify the message. This style is cost-effective and quick to produce, making it a favourite for brands looking to create impactful content on a budget.

Mixed Media Animation

Mixed media animation blends live-action footage with animation to create visually striking and engaging content. By merging the real and the surreal, this style offers endless creative possibilities, from enhancing live-action interviews with animated overlays to creating fantastical scenes that blend reality and imagination.

Brands often use mixed media animation to stand out in crowded markets, leveraging the contrast between real-world elements and digital enhancements. This approach works particularly well for product demos, explainer videos, or brand storytelling, where the animation can illustrate ideas that would be difficult or costly to film.

Mixed media animation also adds a playful edge to corporate or commercial content, bridging the gap between professional and creative. Its adaptability ensures it remains a go-to style for brands aiming to create memorable and unique visual experiences.

AI Animation

AI-generated animation is revolutionising the industry by streamlining workflows and unlocking creative potential. By automating processes such as in-betweening, lip-syncing, and even character design, AI allows animators to focus on storytelling and artistry.

This emerging style is being used to create hyper-realistic characters, procedural animations, and even personalised content tailored to individual viewers. For brands, AI production can speed up the process, reduce costs, and enable experimentation with complex visuals that would typically require significant resources.

Beyond efficiency, AI opens the door to new forms of animation, such as generative art and real-time interactions. For instance, brands can create dynamic content that adapts to user behaviour in real time, adding an interactive layer to campaigns. As AI technology evolves, it’s poised to become a driving force behind innovative and immersive animation experiences.

What’s Next?

Animation offers endless possibilities to communicate ideas, tell stories, and elevate your brand. By understanding the strengths of different styles, you can choose the approach that best aligns with your message and audience.

Ready to move forward with your animation? Next step, find a partner. How about a creative, award-winning animation studio…? Oh, hi!

We offer the full range of animation services; from concept & scripting to delivery. If you’d like to find out more, then get in touch with the team to talk all things animation.