Nottingham University

The School of Medicine at Nottingham University is in the top 1% of Universities worldwide. a dozen eggs were asked to produce an animation that would communicate this, alongside other key messages, to potential PhD candidates. We worked with the Centre for Doctoral Training in Rehabilitation and Healthcare Research (CDT). The group provide PhD training for clinicians who want to study for a doctorate alongside a clinical role.

The primary objective of the video was to explain the benefits of the PhD course and the research areas available for candidates to explore. The CDT also wanted to give prospective students an idea of life and work at the university, as well as the city of Nottingham, where most students reside during their PhD.  This was particularly important as many of the CDT’s students are from outside the UK and commit to several years of study here.  We decided to use a realistic style of illustration, which would give us greater flexibility over what could be included in certain scenes while also allowing us to accurately reference photos where we needed to.

An animation such as this also gives some extra longevity to the video as updating information or scenes is easy to do.  Since this is a medical course, a video made from film footage can become outdated as people change jobs and technology is updated.  With all this in mind, we created a series of images that would support the course information, and provide prospective students with a more holistic view of what their PhD at University of Nottingham would be like.

We’ve found animation to be a very useful tool when communicating a tone, with the feel conjured up by illustration being easier to control over video. Our illustrator Michelle has written a blog post exploring the use of animation within design.