Across Wales, the use of the Welsh language is often sporadic and not capitalised upon by businesses up and down the country. It’s the Welsh Language Commissioner’s mission to promote and encourage the use of the Welsh language in Wales. With the introduction of the Welsh Language Promotion Plan, the Commissioner’s aim is to provide businesses with the ability to improve their provision of the language and understand how best to integrate it with their activities.
One of the biggest challenges is helping businesses grasp the benefit of integrating the language with their processes, and what this means from a financial perspective. What we were tasked to do was to come up with an animation which helps explain these benefits and help viewers understand the fact that a Promotion Plan such as this will help guide them to understand where they could improve their provision and ultimately benefit their business activity.
We decided to approach the art style in a way that would integrate with their existing branding and printed content, repurposing some existing assets as well as creating a wealth of new artwork for this project. It was important that the visuals were clear and easy to decipher—we designed simplified versions of the website and forms so that the intention was easy to see without being bombarded with tons of text or unrelated content.
The project was to spawn two videos: one in English and one in Welsh. As a result, in the design stage, it was important that we considered limiting the amount of text on screen to ensure we didn’t have to spend too much time animating two separate versions. We opted instead for two versions of the voiceover, where simply some retiming would be needed across the two versions—making more effective use of the budget.
The result is a charming little informative piece which gives viewers a good insight into the potential benefits and uses of the Welsh language within their business, and helps highlight the way that the Welsh Language Promotion Plan gives businesses vital support the ability to augment their business offering.
