Creative Uses of Animated Blobs in Graphic Design and Web Development
If you’ve browsed the web much at all in the last half-decade or so, you’ve probably noticed a large uptick in the number of websites using fluid, curving shapes. Sometimes it’s a simple circle while other times it’s a fully animated background with shapes moving in boundless and amorphous patterns. What you’re seeing is a design element known simply as The Blob.
The blob trend can pop up anyone on the web, from websites for SaaS start-ups to financial companies to online retailers, no industry was safe from The Blob. In this piece, we’ll go through a couple of different use cases you’ve probably encountered that highlight blobs in graphic design and web development.
The Blob in Digital Assistants
If you’ve never used Siri or the Google Assistant on your phone, you’ve seen blobs in action. In fact, much of the AI we rely on daily is “embodied” as blob animations. The programs use shifting, wavy circular shapes to indicate the program is listening to you speak, analyzing what you said, and formulating a response. The blobs will bounce or pulse while the program “talks” in response to your request.
Blobs in Data Visualization
For some reason, blobs evoke a feeling of advanced computing and calculations. As such, they’re popular elements in data visualization. The curving lines give an impression of natural growth in a way that traditional, angular graphs don’t.
Blob Lines as Section Breaks
Similar to data visualization, blob elements help to visually break a page into different sections. The transition from one section to another feels more natural when the line breaks use organic-feeling shapes such as rolling waves or looping curves. Comparatively, straight lines or angular shapes feel jarring and distracting to the human eye.
With blobby section breaks, the eye travels easily from one section of a website to the next with fewer breaks in concentration. This design aspect keeps website visitors more engaged with the page content and less likely to bounce from the website.
Blobs Highlight Products in eCommerce Sites
Blobs naturally draw in the eye and form a visual anchor for a landing page. For this reason, they make excellent elements for ecommerce product pages. Through the interesting use of shape and color, blobs encourage engagement with an image that may not be all that interesting to look at such as sports gear or outdoor apparel.
Loading Screen Blob Animations
Blog animations make for the perfect loading screen animations. Animated blobs, such as those made with the Movidmo Blob Maker, are constantly shifting without making any substantial changes. They give viewers the impression of a program “thinking” or hard at work retrieving information, easing impatience while a program loads. Compared to a typical status bar or spinning circle, the blob is a much more effective loading screen animation.
Create Blobs Using the Movidmo Blob Maker
Blobs are a hot item in design, and this tool allows you to randomly generate animated blobs or blobs as static images.
Using the Movidmo Blob Maker, you can create blobs to elevate your website’s design in a way that sets your brand apart from everyone else, despite using a very on-trend design element.
