The moving poster manifesto consists of the 4 main rules how to design moving posters:
The movement should be based on the message of the poster, take it up and reinforce it, such as the moving version of the poster by Götz Gramlich, in which the lighthouse, where the light already seem rotate, do just that in the moving version.
The use of motion is comparable to the use of special inks in printing. We don't print every poster in fluorescent inks just because they stand out so well, but only when their use is consistent with the poster message and serves to better transport the information or mood. The same applies to the use of the movement.
Naturally, a strobe effect and exploding objects will attract some attention. But if they don't suit the content, the added movement won't enhance the conveyance of the poster's message in the long run, but rather serve as short-term gimmickry. The animation is part of the design!
The poster for the Lucerne Juso, which was designed to draw attention to the fact that all the tourist busses in the city centre block the view of the city itself, is an example of this. Busses crowd together on the printed poster, leaving the background completely hidden. In the moving version, the motion of busses opens gaps so the well-known Lucerne Water Tower is briefly visible in the background.
Or especially when it comes to poster series, where the different visuals can be shown one after the other in the same format, while the main information layer remains the same or static, as you can see well in the example of the SAP poster from Everyday Practice.
The many frames make it possible for information to be shown in fluctuating degrees of legibility, unlike in printed posters. Playing with readability generates tension and steers the direction in which words are read.
The “Vlow!” poster by Studio Feixen is a good example of this. It shows a well-balanced interplay between the shifting layer of words in the background and the morphing layer in the foreground, which sometimes obscures or reveals the title, sometimes the date.
This also allows elements or texts to be larger than the format. While these are trimmed for illegibility in printed form, motion can be used to make hidden parts visible.
We can see how a moving poster works differently than ordinary film disciplines by comparing the plots. While a film, held together by an arc of suspense, goes through different scenes and a television commercial presents the first the problem and then the solution, in the development of a moving poster we cannot assume that viewers will see the events completely and in the same sequence.
A moving poster should therefore not employ more cinematic narrative methods, such as cuts and pans, and the storyline should not be too long. This doesn’t mean that it’s impossible to tell little stories, a fine example of this is the "Der Bau" poster by Neue Gestaltung.
It is, however, important to ensure that the plot is limited to a short period of time to allow the viewer to grasp the story very quickly.
