Web animation effects and motion graphics will put you on the fast track to⚡remarkable⚡web designs.
There are no excuses for bland and flat user experiences in 2024! We’ve curated 25 popular website animation examples and effects that are definite crowd-pleasers in the design world.
From spellbinding morphing animation examples to immersive page transition effects, we’re showing you how to take your website from “meh” to “WOW!” 😮
Table of Contents
- Line Animation Examples
- Self-Drawing Animation Effects
- Morphing Animation Effects
- Animated Logos
- Animated Icons
- Microinteractions | UI Animation Examples
- Character Website Animations
- Faux 3D Animation Effects
- Vertical and Horizontal Scrolling Effects
- Mixed Media Web Animation Examples
- Liquid Motion Effects
- Animated Gradient Effects
- Isometric Animation Effects
- Background Website Animations
- Hand-Drawn Doodle Web Animations
- Website Page Transition Effects
- Hero Section Web Animations
- Loading Skeleton Screens | Bento Website Grids
- Progression Effects | Loading Animations
- Hover Web Animation Effects
- Neumorphic Animation Effect
- Glassmorphic Animation Effect
- Claymorphic Animation Effect
- Animated flipbooks
- Stop-Motion Animation Effect
1. Line Animation Examples
Line animation, especially with the trendy thin line work aesthetic, is an incredibly freeing design and animation style! With the restrictions of conventional composition out the window, you’re left with limitless possibilities for motion design artistry.
SVGator
From character animation to page loaders, and delicate vector portraits – the world is your oyster!
2. Self-Drawing Animation Effects
Self-drawing animation, also known as stroke-path animation, is like a motion design superpower 🦸 allowing you to create intricate self-drawing and self-erasing effects.
Rooted in line art, this sketch-like effect is perfect for creating self-drawing characters, landing page scrolly-telling illustrations, wordmarks, and even backgrounds that look as if they’re being hand-drawn in real time!
3. Morphing Animation Effects
Morphing animation effects can fine-tune your transition game, even when it comes to effervescent liquid animation and other high-speed motion graphics. Morphing anything, from basic shapes to intricate logos and characters, makes room for a limitless streak of twists and turns in your visual storytelling. Get your viewers entranced – trying to figure out how the transitions blend together so seamlessly!
4. Animated Logos
Logo animations, or any motion graphic featuring your logotype, logomark, or loveable mascot, are phenomenal branding assets.
You can rely on them to push your brand identity to the forefront of a customer’s memory – especially when using the same animated logos across all your digital channels. A lasting impression is only one of the advantages of a logo animation!
5. Animated Icons
Animated icons are an intuitive UX improvement tool that goes hand in hand with the design world’s soft spot for interactive UI design. Interactive icon animations (triggered on click/hover) are the type of subtle details that facilitate usability, accessibility, and user engagement.
They masterfully mimic the feel of a two-way conversation between the customer and your brand, without impeding peak page performance.
6. Microinteractions | UI Animation Examples
Micro-animations fit the bill for a design style that focuses on meeting the needs and wants of an intuitive customer journey. From animated navigation bars to interactive sign-up forms, and thoughtfully designed CTA buttons that users can’t ignore – UI mobile animations are a contributing factor to digital interfaces that communicate information more effectively (and cooler!).
7. Character Website Animations
Animated characters are your golden ticket to making a company feel more relatable to its audience, humanizing the brand’s voice and online presence with ease. Turn basic shapes into a likable animated character that mirrors human-like movements. Humans are naturally drawn to, and are extremely likely to connect with, anything that mimics them visually and behaviorally. Don’t sleep on storytelling with character animations!
8. Faux 3D Animation Effects
3D-like animation effects are the drizzles of depth, dimensionality, and immersion that you can attribute to flat design, with the help of motion graphics. Layering, simulating perspective (with transformations such as: scaling, skewing, rotating, etc.), and other similar techniques can help you create the illusion of 3D spatial relationships in a 2D environment.
9. Vertical and Horizontal Scrolling Effects
Scrolling effects are remarkable user experience upgrading tools, putting unparalleled visual interest at the disposal of web designers. Carousel effects, horizontal scroll snapping, satisfying background transitions, revealing animations, and the ol’ classic parallax scrolling – can all help you guide users’ focus effectively. The sense of anticipation that stems from using vertical and horizontal scrolling effects combined is unmatched!
10. Mixed Media Web Animation Examples
Mixed media website animations, popular among Gen Z, combine photography with vector graphics, bringing forth a new dimension of creativity. Pairing the predominant 2D sketch-like aesthetic with text, grainy textures, and other Gen Z design gems, results in captivating 😍 web animations every time!
11. Liquid Motion Effects
Liquid motion design effects are a sub-genre of organic animations, entailing the use of splashy, flowing, and smooth movements, often masking transitions. These entrancing effects can take the shape of morphing shapes, liquid text animation effects, gradient color transitions, or ripple effects. Liquid animations can make the user interface feel even more spellbinding when you add interactivity into the mix!
12. Animated Gradient Effects
Gradient effects, or animated color transitions, have the potential to define and influence the mood of your web designs and the tone of your copy, through motion alone. Animated gradients are also much more likely to rise up in a viewer’s attention hierarchy, giving you the power to shift focus to any element you desire.
13. Isometric Animation Effects
Isometric animated effects are a playful take on perspective, using 2D animation to create 3D-like optics. As a rule of thumb, to achieve a clear and realistic isometric angle for your web animations, there needs to be a 120º angle between the x, y, and z axes, and you should avoid converging lines. How creatively you choose to ditch flat design for more dimensionality is entirely up to you!
14. Background Website Animations
Background web animations may not be on par with scrolling effects in terms of captivating movement, but they are an atmospheric step up, nonetheless. Designing background animations that help introduce users to a brand’s main value proposition, and that lay the groundwork for peak visual interest is the way to go!
15. Hand-Drawn Doodle Web Animations
Animated doodles are the playful and whimsical versions of all the sketches you wished would come to life from the back of your notebook as a kid. Quirky hand-drawn-like website animations make it fun for passers-by to interact with the user interface – creating unskippable opportunities for engagement.
16. Website Page Transition Effects
Wicked web page transition effects that make you want to show them to a designer friend is the ultimate goal here 😍. As long as you use animated page transitions to improve the user experience (including clear visual cues and seamless progression between sections of content), you’re peachy! Experiment with fade-in/out effects, slide transitions, or full page reveals on scroll.
17. Hero Section Web Animations
Hero section website animations are as a concept a massive opportunity to create an unforgettable first impression from the moment a user lands on one of your web pages.
SVGator
This is one spot in your design-thinking cycle where motion fits best – for capturing attention and conveying key messages in the blink of an eye.
18. Loading Skeleton Screens | Bento Website Grids
The world of motion design and graphic design collide in a sensational way when you combine these two concepts. Use the in-vogue bento website grids to arrange your placeholder UI elements, and deliver faultless UX with loading skeleton screens that make it feel like pages are loading faster than they are in reality.
19. Progression Effects | Loading Animations
Progression effects, also known as loading animations, or simply as page loaders, have the sole purpose of presenting website users with unmistakable visual cues that their request is being processed.
They play a major role in guiding users through their decision journey, preventing frustration when loading times are longer than the user’s expectation (which is typically > 0s).
20. Hover Web Animation Effects
Hover effects allow you to show more information on user interaction via interactive “hotspot” elements (e.g., animated icons, buttons, explainer animations, etc.). Smooth, subtle, yet clever hover web animations are the finishing touches that make user interfaces feel truly immersive. They also make it easy for UI and UX designers to keep the interface clutter-free.
21. Neumorphic Animation Effect
Neumorphism is a fusion between Skeuomorphism and flat design. While neumorphism itself is no longer one of the design world’s sweethearts (in terms of trendiness), neumorphic animation effects are still out there creating a buzz. Elements appearing to extrude from the background, with a soft, tactile, and 3D look, make fantastic choices for creating impressive and intuitive UIs.
22. Glassmorphic Animation Effect
Glassmorphism plays into the same principles behind all 3D-like interfaces, creating the illusion of depth, translucency, and texture using layered glass-like panels. Motion design only serves to heighten the appeal of the frosted glass effect – resulting in UI elements that can stop website viewers in their tracks 🧲.
23. Claymorphic Animation Effect
Claymorphism, the web-friendly version of claymation, brings clay-like aesthetics into the web design world. Clay-like motion effects that mimic this malleable medium can bring a ton of fun into your web animations. Play with light and vivid pastel color palettes, oversized rounded corners, and heavy inner and outer shadows!
24. Animated flipbooks
Animated online catalogs, with interactive features like GIFs, photo-slideshows, audio and video elements, social media buttons, and map embeds are a great way to bring your PDF to the next level. Flipsnack is a great flipbook animation software that allows you to create and publish interactive content materials with a realistic 3D page flip effect. Its user-friendly interface, drag-and-drop editor, and a wide variety of templates make this software accessible to all users, whether we're talking about professional designers or enthusiastic beginners.
25. Stop-Motion Animation Effect
Stop-motion effects create an unmistakable type of illusion of movement by stringing together a sequence of images/frames. It’s no wonder designers are falling head over heels for this charisma and nostalgia-heavy aesthetic!
Check our motion design guide linked below.
SVGator
Ready to make use of all the newly acquired web animation inspiration? Create your own web animation effects with SVGator, and share your work with the rest of the community! We’re on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Pinterest, and Reddit.
