This animated video was created for The Women’s Aid Organisation (WAO), a non-profit organization based in Malaysia.

In 1982, WAO opened its first shelter for battered women and their children. Its vision is to create a society that is free of violence against women and at the same time, to promote and create respect, protection and fulfillment of equal rights for women. WAO’s Refuge provides a shelter home to women in need: abused women, single mothers, migrant domestic worker and trafficked women. These women will receive counseling, legal advice and opportunities to learn new skills. A social worker will be assigned to a woman to help choose a life without violence.

Once the women leave the shelter to work independently, the Child Care Centre at WAO helps to care for their children. WAO provide a safe home, education and a good support system to help them start their healing process away from violence.

WAO believes that all humans have the right to self determination and control of their lives. They educate the public and raise awareness on violence against women at schools, colleges, universities, corporations and government agencies and also work with other NGOs as part of acoalition called the Joint Action Group for Gender Equality (JAG) to advocate women’s human rights.

We’re very happy to be given the opportunity to work with all the great people in WAO and be a part of this exceptional cause.

Find out how you can help at : www.wao.org.my

We were approached by XM Asia, a full service digital advertising agency in Singapore with over 300 professionals across offices in Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Indonesia and Thailand to produce a three minutes and half animated corporate presentation for the launch of Maxis and Hotlink’s new websites.

Maxis Berhad is one of the largest telecommunications companies in Malaysia, with millions of users spread across the country. Maxis is the main corporate brand encompassing postpaid, home and business services whereas Hotlink serves the prepaid consumer segment. Maxis’ world-class high performance network covers more than 95% of the population in Malaysia with retail presence and operations in all 13 states and territories. Its data network is rated by independent agencies as the best in Malaysia.

This animated corporate video combines cut-out animation with motion graphics and some 3D elements to showcase the new design and features of the websites. It was the very first time that our team created cut-out animation and the process was fun and challenging. Our biggest challenge was the deadline. We were given only one week to complete the task. After a hectic week of hard work, we successfully completed the final animation a day prior to the launch.

In the age of YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, it’s usually less about the text and more about the visuals. Naturally, you would need to have a short, impactful description when creating a post for just about anything, but videos and photos have more weight. Whether you’re updating your status in your social networking account, enticing customers to try out your products or organizing an event, having a custom made video is the best way to go.

What are Custom Made Videos?

First, let’s have a quick look at what custom made videos are all about. Videos are meant to entertain or deliver a message, and these used to be created only by professional videographers. Over the years, gadgets were released in the market which were used to shoot home videos. Now that almost any mobile phone can be used to shoot pretty decent quality videos, practically anybody can make their own mini-movie.

Now, the difference between casually made videos and custom made videos is the quality. Let’s say that you’re a family with three kids and you have videos of the first step of your eldest – only you cannot watch it anymore because it’s in VHS format. With a professional custom made video, these can be transferred to the format that we know of today, and can even be uploaded to YouTube. If you have videos which have an older format, a video expert will be able to transfer that for you and turn it into a custom made video. Some of the older video formats which you can have transferred to DVD or YouTube-upload-read format are:

• Clips from video tapes.
• Home movies.
• Photos and slideshows.
• 8mm, Super8 or 16 mm home movie films.

When Would I Need to Have Custom Videos Made?

Next, when would you need to have custom videos made? Take a look at the following list:

• For special occasions.

Weddings are the most popular occasions where custom videos are made. In the wedding photography industry, video and photo experts offer SDEs or Same Day Edits. This means that the day’s events – starting from dressing up the bride and groom to the uttering of the vows – will be shown in a video clip for the guests to enjoy during the reception. A few years ago, these SDEs would not have been possible but with digital technology, you can already view the day’s events in a matter of minutes. Other special occasions where custom videos are made include anniversaries and birthdays.

• For posterity’s sake.

If you have a bunch of black-and-white photos, a custom made video can include the restored versions of these old snapshots. These old photos have such a history and character to them, that it does pay to have them organized into a video for posterity’s sake.

• For product launches.

If you’re a business owner, custom made videos can be used to launch a product. They don’t necessarily have to be made with a million-dollar budget, but the quality needs to be professional-looking for you to project a good image and represent your brand well.

• For creating videos that will get traffic to your site.

You can also use custom made videos to drive traffic to your site. How-to videos, funny clips which will hopefully go viral, educational and entertaining videos can all be embedded to your site to drive traffic to it.
Benefits of Custom Made Videos

Next, what are the benefits of having custom videos made? If you’re a business owner, you can use the custom made videos as a way to represent your brand. Not only can you generate awareness about the product that you’re offering to your customers, but you can also use the video to spread the word about your brand.

Another benefit of custom made videos for business owners is that they can be used to dive traffic to a website. The more hits, likes or comments a video generates, the more traffic it will lead to your site. This further results to more revenues for your overall business.

If you’re introducing a new business process, custom made videos can be used for training purposes. Instead of hiring a trainer, you can have the video produced at a fraction of the cost and still have an effective way for employees learn about new business processes.

If you would like to leave a lasting impression to your clients, you can use custom made videos with 2D, 3D or motion graphic effects. Other things that you can add are whiteboard or cut-out animation – use one based on the image that you’d like to project. Finally, if there’s a special occasion to be celebrated in your family, custom made videos will give it a personal touch yet still have it turn out with professional results.

Go  Mobile

Think about it.  How many of the people you know own a smartphone?  The number of times you’ve seen someone you know seek out the instant gratification of the knowledge that is literally at their fingertips is insurmountable.  Our lives are on the go, and so too should your business be.  Make sure that your website and video content is easily loadable and viewable on a mobile device, or you could be missing out on an entire demographic of potential customers.  Mobile is the new age, be a part of it.

Create Trust

If there’s anything we can all agree on, it’s that no one likes having anyone in their face screaming ‘buy buy buy!’.  That’s how many commercials as well as marketing videos can come off if you’re not careful.  People are much more likely to buy into businesses and brands they feel they can trust.  There are a few ways to make this happen.  Share tips and advice with potential customers that can be helpful when they’re dealing with your product or service outside of just your brand.  Make them feel that even if they don’t choose you, that you genuinely want them to have the best experience possible.  Being knowledgable and informational without just making an attempt to sell can build a lot of trust with potential customers.

Don’t Repeat

It’s important that your video be concise.  Trying to fill 3 minutes of video content but finding yourself repeating words, phrases, or ideas?  Don’t.  No one wants to hear the same thing over and over again, even if it’s said in a different way.  Even if you’re not saying ‘buy buy buy!’, this is often how repetitive information is perceived.  Potential customers are less likely to buy if you’re over branding.  If the message you’re trying to get across is just as easily conveyed in one minute as three, then stick with one minute.  You don’t want to risk losing your audience.

Branch Out

Video is now the most shared thing on the internet, and one reason for that is because it’s so easily shared.  YouTube for example makes every video an embed code making it just a click and a post away from increasing its viewership tenfold or more on any social media site.  You know what that means for you?  Free marketing!  Okay, maybe not entirely free after the cost of the video itself, but video tends to have a life of it’s own.  It moves and breaths and touches people without any effort on your part, so branch out and pave the road for more people to visit your site in the first place.

Listen to Feedback!

Let’s face it.  We’ve all had that piece of art, that shirt, that phase, or a number of other things that for whatever reason at the time, we were the only ones who couldn’t see how bad it really was.  Don’t be the only eyes on your video.  Ask others for their honest feedback.  What you may see as something that works entirely, others may see something missing, or maybe something that’s just too much.  Trust the opinions of others, because collectively, those opinions are probably going to resonate with the feelings your customers are left after watching your marketing video. And those are 5 tips to help you optimize your marketing video to make sure you get those precious 2 extra minutes of website viewership.  Don’t belittle those 2 minutes, they really add up.

What is the best way to explain about your product or service and how to convince your target audience to buy it?

Presenting all these explanations in text can be boring, especially in a fast-paced society where no one really bothers to sit down and spend minutes or hours reading through a huge chunk of text trying to figure out how something works. With the advent of technology and social media, the easiest and most convenient way is to put all these explanations into an explainer video and share it both online and offline. An explainer video is a short and simple animated video created to explain about a business, how a product or service works and why should people use the product or service.

Whether you are launching a new product or you want to explain about a complex idea to your audience, explainer video helps you present your message in a simple and graphically engaging manner which connects with your audience instantly. According to Forrester research, a promotional video on a website is 53 times more likely to drive first page search result which leads to an increase in traffic to a website. Research also shows that 55% of people who view videos visit the company’s website and 24% make a purchase as a result of watching the videos.

There are so many ways to share an explainer video which allows you to reach out to a wider audience, both online and offline, such as on website’s homepage, social media networks, email campaigns, video sharing sites and even corporate events or face-to-face meetings. Explainer video is a tool to educate and entertain your audience, leaving a longer and more impactful impression on viewers’ minds. It is easy to share. If the video was produced with the right content and quality, it will increase the chances of it going viral, which ultimately results in an increase in conversion rate.

Here is one of the most recent explainer videos we developed for a mobile payment company called Soft Space.

Soft Space provides a payment platform that makes it possible for everyone to accept card payments anywhere, anytime, securely for both businesses and individuals. With Soft Space, even a cab driver can accept card payment easily.

The first video was created to educate the audience on the subject of Card Present and Card Not Present and why Card Present transaction is preferred. It involves security concerns, convenience and even credit card transaction rates.

The second video explains about what Centralized EMV Processing is and how Soft Space can help simplify credit card payment with its fully EMV certified and approved mobile payment platform.

Explaining all these in texts might be confusing and boring. That’s why Soft Space decided to compress the messages that they wanted to convey into two 2-min explainer videos to show how all these work as well as the solution provided to simplify card payment. To learn more, be sure to check out these videos.

Your designs might be an infographic resume, an infographic business plan, a meeting handout, a presentation slide, an online marketing infographic or a personal design experiment just for fun. The key is that you want your infographic design to be visually engaging because that is what makes infographics worth sharing.

Keep It Clear

Different indicators collection by tovovan

Most people get stuck using the same basic charts and graphs because that’s what they learned from using Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint. Bar charts, line charts, and pie charts are the three data visualizations used most often, but one set of data can be accurately visualized in many different ways.

You can improve your infographic design by branching out and using a data visualization technique that looks different from the normal charts. This will make your design more engaging and memorable to your audience. This risk we all face is taking this idea too far, and creating what’s called “chart junk” (including too many colors or too much ornamentation that makes the data harder to understand).

These visualizations are slightly more difficult to design because they aren’t automated chart styles built into your standard office applications. You’ll have to do some math to adjust the chart design manually, but there are hundreds of vector designs that you can use as design elements that make editing simple. Some examples would be thermometer illustrations, circle diagrams or dashboard gauges instead of pie charts.

Be Iconic

Icons set by vectorlib.com

You don’t need to create these visual elements from scratch. This is not meant to be artistic; it’s storytelling with data and information. If you are spending a lot of time designing custom illustrations or images, your project is going to take a lot longer than necessary.

The job of an infographic designer is to tell the story in a focused, clear, and simple manner. Using too many colors or including full color photos in an infographic design often creates unnecessary visual noise, and makes the overall infographic feel more complicated. In fact, using simple images like basic shapes and icons reduces the visual noise of the overall design and makes it easier to read for the audience.

Know the Rules

Business icons by Kittisak

It’s easy to perform a quick internet search to find images to use in your infographic design. However, by using the images found this way you have to be concerned about copyright infringement. Make certain the images you include are available through a public license. If you’re designing an infographic for business reasons, you could unknowingly be putting your company at legal and financial risk.

Royalty-free stock image sites (like Shutterstock) are the best solution to making absolutely sure that you have the required permissions to include an image in your infographic design. When designing infographic projects for clients, we make sure that the images we include as part of the final infographic are appropriately licensed.

Trademarks are a similar, but different issue. You are allowed to use trademarked logos of other companies in your design under the “Fair Use” portion of trademark law. Using logos is permitted if you are reporting information about the company or comparing companies. What you can’t do is use a company logo to impersonate another company or imply that your design is endorsed by that company.

If you take the time to learn the laws and lay of the land, you won’t have anything to worry about. And then you can stay focused on what really matters: the design.

Randy Krum is the Founder and President of InfoNewt®, an infographic design company. Randy also runs CoolInfographics.com, one of the top sites on the internet that shares and reviews cool infographic designs from all over the world.

Source : http://www.shutterstock.com/blog/2013/01/design_tips_infographic_pro

Kasra Design was featured on Motionographer.com recently and our work ‘What is Vector?’ was chosen as the featured work. Here’s what Motionographer.com said:-

• “Very cute piece on the difference between vector images and bitmap images. (I thought that people in our industry would find this fun). So, what does Kasra Design do?… Well, y’know how people get great ideas but end up frustrated because they can’t communicate their ideas effectively? Well, what Kasra Design does is help people communicate their ideas visually with cool “explainer videos.”

We would like to extend our gratitude to the team at Motionographer for appreciating our work by featuring it on their website. Hopefully, we’ll produce more cool pieces in the future to be featured on this well-reputable motion graphics community.

After weeks of hard work, we’ve completed this animated explainer video for TheraSim, virtual patient simulations for modern healthcare training. TheraSim virtual patient simulations allow healthcare professionals to learn in a web-based interactive environment that teaches real clinical skills, whether treating patients or reducing protocol violations.Driven by the world’s smartest simulation mentor, Aime, with more than 1 million clinical rules behind the scenes, you get to practise what you actually do – treat patients, and get expert feedback every step of the way. Powerful built-in metrics track your individual and peers’ performance data, sorted by competency, group, and action.

TheraSim simulations can be used anywhere, anytime, on any device with a hundred medical conditions, to 150,000 clinicians together with a bunch of big name clients.

We’ve also designed a set of unique characters for the animated video. Check out our latest work and feel free to share it if you enjoy it!

Let us first start with how people used to share contents via the Internet. It’s like reading an article in the newspaper. Most publisher sites are flat. A site that has a regular sharing widget is the same as someone ripping a page out of a newspaper, and handing it to the friend. Even though these sites are sitting on an internet with millions of ways to explore, websites don’t empower exploration.

Markerly makes the entire experience dynamic – with highlight and impulse sharing, searching content on the page so there is no drop off, and commenting on the pieces of text that interest you instead of the article as a whole. Markerly opens up a world of engagement for publishers so they can accurately listen to what their readers like, what they copy and paste from their site, etc., and increase their revenue by providing higher page views for advertisers, increase their user base by providing a more interactive community, and increase the desire to share content by continually improving based on how users engage with text. We’ve visualized all of these in a fun and engaging 2D explainer video for them.

Working with Markerly team was a great experience. Sarah Ware, Markerly’s co-founder, even used her own voice for the voice-over which makes the whole animation a lot more personal and fun.
For those who have yet to hear about Markerly, be sure to check out their website at www.markerly.com and find out a new way to engage your readers. Most importantly, learn about what Markerly is by watching the explainer video we made for them.

Kasra Design was approached by SEGi University Group, one of the largest private higher education providers in Malaysia to produce a corporate animated video for their online portal, SEGi Sphere.

The Group serves more than 27,500 students through six of its major campuses located in different cities in Malaysia. For more than 35 years, SEGi has equipped students from diverse backgrounds with exceptional foundations for career achievement and personal success.

The portal, SEGi Sphere, allows students to find a job, shop, get updates from lecturers and access to e-library and many more. It allows students to connect to their campus needs anywhere, any time as long as there is Internet access.

It is one useful tool for students to help them in the research and revision of their studies. The portal also comes with the mini games for students to take their study break and unwind.

We got to work with a bunch of cool people on this animated video who know design and understand creativity. Even though the deadline was extremely tight, working with the people from SEGi was a fun experience.