Whiteboard Animation and Explainer Videos

What whiteboard animation does well

A whiteboard video draws its pictures on screen while the voiceover explains them. A hand sketches a person, then an arrow, then the next step, and the viewer follows the drawing as it builds. That is the whole trick, and it works because the viewer’s eye is always exactly where the explanation is.

So whiteboard animation is at its best for processes. How to apply for something. What happens after a referral. The steps in a safety procedure. The order a new starter should do things in their first week. Anywhere a viewer has to follow a sequence, a whiteboard explainer video keeps them on the right step.

We make whiteboard explainer videos in our Dublin studio for health services, education and training bodies, charities and businesses across Ireland.

Whiteboard video or another style?

Whiteboard is one of three styles we usually recommend for an explainer video, and it is not always the right one.

If you want viewers to see people like themselves in warm, coloured scenes, 2D character animation is better. That is the style the HSE chose for its Psychology First series on stress, low mood and loss. If your subject is numbers, a product or something that needs to look sleek and corporate, motion graphics will suit it better.

Whiteboard wins when clarity matters more than polish, and when the content has steps. It is also quick to produce compared with full character animation, which keeps longer training films affordable.

Writing for a whiteboard

The script matters more in whiteboard than in any other style, because every line becomes a drawing. “She feels better after talking to someone” is one sentence and it is hard to draw. “She picks up the phone, and her shoulders drop” is easy to draw and says the same thing.

We read your script against the clock first. Narration runs at about 130 words a minute, so a three hundred word script is roughly two and a half minutes. Then we ask for it back with a column describing what should be drawn at each line. That one step removes most of the back and forth later, because disagreements happen on a document instead of on a finished animation.

Whiteboard videos for training and public information

Most of the whiteboard animation we are asked for is for training and elearning or health information. Both suit the style for the same reason: the viewer has chosen to watch and wants to understand something properly, so a calm, step by step drawing holds them better than fast cuts.

For longer subjects we usually suggest a series of short films rather than one long one. Each can sit beside the lesson or page it supports, and when one step changes only that film needs redrawing.

What you get

A finished whiteboard explainer video with professional voiceover and music, delivered as MP4 in landscape for your website and YouTube, with square or vertical versions for social media if you need them. Subtitles can be burned in or supplied as a separate file, and versions in other languages can be quoted separately.

We price from the final script word count, so the figure you are quoted is the figure you pay. Send us the script, even in draft, and we will come back with a price and a schedule. For every other type of animation we make, see our video production in Ireland page.