Animation in Digital Magazines
Written by Matt Berringer
February 7, 2022
Humans love to engage with content, and now you can create interactive magazines with animation. People have been fascinated by moving pictures since the days of characters like Bugs Bunny and Mickey Mouse. The digital publishing world can tap into this medium by creating moving magazine parts that capture attention and enhance content beyond the written word.
The nxtbook and PageRaft platforms are at the cutting-edge of this technology with engaging experiences that power interactive versions of your print publications or PDFs. This step-by-step guide will walk you through how animation can improve your digital magazine, the different types of animation and how you can add dynamic animation to your publication with nxtbook or PageRaft.
Why Use Animation?
Animation is a tool that has captured the hearts and imaginations of people. In a digital magazine format, the principles of motion reward user attention with interactivity. Statistics tell us that 65% of Americans are visual learners, so attractive and eye-catching information is highly effective. Supporting studies also show that web-based animations with color excite users, make designs pop and draw user attention to the most important elements on the page.
Animation is a powerful medium that keeps users interested over time, makes your content more attractive and allows you to control the main focus and flow of a page.
Types of Animation that Engage Readers
Animations can capture your audience’s attention by allowing them control over the reading experience. Multimedia can also help keep users focused as they move from activity to activity within your publication.
The five main types of animations are:
- Zoom: You can include high-quality images that allow users to zoom in on your pictures to experience the fine detail without distortion.
- Parallax: This animation is similar to scrolling, except there are two animations layered on top of one another for a 2D side-scrolling effect.
- Slideshow: Slideshow animation is a slide or content presentation with text and images that adds motion to the content and saves space on the page.
- Video: Video media is the most popular form of content on the internet and can largely increase the value of your magazine to the consumer.
- Audio: Audio is another animation that can increase the interactivity of a magazine article. You can showcase music, podcasts and much more with this robust feature.
How to Add Animation
When editors and publishers first learn about digital magazine animation, one of the first questions they ask is how to animate a magazine. You simply upload your high-resolution PDF into our nxtbook CMS and head into the platform. The intuitive system and knowledge base walks you through mirroring your publication’s design and adding elements like animations.
PageRaft is another application for using animation in digital magazines. Rather than replicating your current publication, PageRaft helps you build responsive magazine content from scratch. You can design your content in the PageRaft CMS and upload everything from text to multimedia like videos, audio and images.
Connect With Nxtbook Media to Launch Your Interactive Magazine Today
The Nxtbook Media team is here to guide you through the nxtbook process, so you can create transformational animations to grow your readership. We have more than 17 years of experience working with world-class clients like Disney and Virgin Media.
Ready to take the next step? Connect with our team for a free demo online today to learn more.
