The Most Popular Animation Styles and Techniques to Use in Your Videos

2D animation is a classic technique that brings stories to life on a flat plane. Defined by its distinct, vibrant visuals, this style offers a timeless aesthetic that remains versatile for modern applications. From expressive character animations in short films to eye-catching advertisements and social media content, 2D animation allows creators to convey complex emotions and narratives through simple, elegant visuals. Its adaptability makes it the go-to choice for projects seeking to balance clarity with a playful or professional tone, ensuring it’s always in style.

While 2D animation excels in simplicity and charm, 3D animation elevates your videos by leveraging realistic textures, lighting, and shadows to push the boundaries of creativity. With its fully three-dimensional characters, objects, and environments, this style creates a captivating sense of depth and immersion. As the most popular animation technique today, 3D animation brings a level of realism and dynamism that makes it ideal for storytelling, product showcases, and interactive experiences. Its ability to simulate real-world physics enhances engagement, making your intros, promos or video ads stand out in a visually saturated digital landscape.

If you’re looking for a tactile, handcrafted feel that sets your videos apart, stop motion animation offers a uniquely personal touch. This technique involves physically manipulating objects frame by frame, making subtle changes to create the illusion of fluid movement. The result is a distinctive, almost hypnotic motion that draws viewers in, giving videos a sense of charm and authenticity that’s hard to replicate with other animation styles. Its unique aesthetic opens up endless possibilities for imaginative projects, allowing you to express creativity in a truly one-of-a-kind manner.

Cartoon animation is all about exaggeration, bold visuals, and lively characters. With dynamic expressions and playful movement, this style amplifies emotions and actions in a way that keeps viewers engaged. Its ability to stretch reality while maintaining clarity makes it the perfect choice for adding fun and personality to any video. Whether you're creating intros, promos, music visualizers, or slideshows, Videobolt’s cartoon-style templates help you inject humor and a whimsical touch, making your content truly unforgettable.

If you’re looking for an animation style that feels personal and creatively distinct, hand-drawn animation delivers a crafted charm that’s hard to replicate. With its flowing motion, natural textures, and expressive linework, it creates a warm, artistic aesthetic that stands out in an era of polished digital visuals. Its sketch-like quality offers limitless creative freedom, making it ideal for storytelling-driven content that feels genuine and emotionally resonant. Looking to add a natural, sketch-like touch to your animations? Explore our hand-drawn templates.

For a visually unique and creatively flexible approach, cutout animation offers a handcrafted aesthetic that stands apart from traditional 2D or 3D styles. This stop-motion style animates flat characters, props, and backgrounds to create a dynamic, textured movement. The result is a stylized look that adds a tactile and artistic quality to any video. Its simplicity allows for imaginative storytelling, making it perfect for whimsical narratives or visually distinct brand content. With this technique, you can explore a playful, collage-inspired look or go after a more polished style, providing a way for your videos to stand out. See what we have to offer and bring this unique animation style to your videos.

Typography isn’t just about what you say — it’s about how it moves. Kinetic typography brings text to life with motion, creating dynamic, attention-grabbing visuals. Words stretch, shrink, rotate, and bounce across the screen, adding rhythm and flow that reinforce your key messages. By synchronizing text movement with audio or other visual elements, these dynamic text animations enhance storytelling and capture your audience’s attention. Take a look at the twists and turns you can create with our kinetic typography templates.

Isometric animation offers a sleek, modern approach to visual storytelling by presenting objects and scenes from a three-quarter perspective. By using a fixed perspective, it gives objects a three-dimensional feel without requiring full 3D rendering, making it a visually striking choice for modern applications. With its clean lines and precise geometry, isometric animation exudes professionalism and clarity, perfect for a wide variety of content ideas. Ready to elevate your projects? Explore our collection of isometric templates and bring precision and dimension to your animations today.

Squash and stretch is an animation technique that makes movement feel more natural and expressive. By compressing or stretching objects as they move, this effect creates a sense of weight, energy, and flexibility that brings animated objects to life. Applied to character animation, motion graphics, or text effects, squash and stretch helps create smooth, dynamic visuals. From subtle bounce effects to extreme distortions, this style is a great choice for capturing viewers’ attention. Check out our selection of templates you can use to introduce this expressive style to your content.

No matter what kind of animation you want to create, Videobolt gives you the tools to bring it to life. With a library of 13,500++ customizable motion graphics templates, you can easily craft professional-quality animations without the need for advanced software or design skills. Browse our collection, customize to fit your style, and turn your ideas into visually stunning content in just a few clicks.