Let’s get technical.

Exum’s Massbox is the first Laser Ablation Laser Ionization Time of Flight Mass Spectrometer (LALI-TOF-MS) instrument on the market. Reading that sentence out loud fast is a great technique for public speaking warmup.

Exum is a wild place. This tiny startup is literally reinventing an industry, making high-tech science much more accessible. Exum was faced with a problem of an incredibly powerful, unique, affordable, desirable product… but none of their customers really understood it. It was taking way too long to explain the science inside a box. Inventing something new, however many problems it may solve for your customers, means nothing if you can’t explain it. Enter Motion Giraffx.

Telling their story through a 2D technical animation is the perfect solution to explain an extremely complicated process. This sales tool is their most valuable asset. It has allowed them to shorten their sales cycle, improve understanding, reach a wider audience faster, and sell more products.

Why a 2D technical animation can work so well

1. Price. As a startup, sticking to a budget is make or break. 2D animation is, on average, a more affordable way to develop content. It’s easier to make changes and the overall process is generally less time consuming than an 3D animation of the same length.
2. Simplicity is key. When telling a complicated story, it’s best to juxtapose the visuals with an efficiently illustrated, clean aesthetic style. Making it look easy to understand tricks your brain to thinking that it is easy to understand. Therefore, your audience won’t be overwhelmed and will watch the video the whole way through.
3. Let’s not give away the secret sauce. When we were first brainstorming this animation, we thought about doing it in 3D. We thought about slicing the model in half to show how it worked inside. Not only was the inside a lot more complicated than I could have imagined, it was giving away a ton of IP about how Exum invented it. No bueno. Going back to the drawing board, it’s clear that a stylized representation of the internal components are the best way to make something extremely technical start to make sense.

When deciding the best way to showcase your product so that you can start raking in the money like Exum, it’s important to carefully decide how you’re going to show it. It’s not one size fits all. To us, 3D and live-action video are obvious non-starters for this specific project, and the perfect solution is a 2D technical animation.