Recently we heard the great news that RSA have won first place in Webby Award’s animation category for their long running RSA Shorts series, which we were honoured to contribute to. The Webby Awards have been described by The New York Times as ‘the Internet’s highest honor’.

What are the Webby Awards?

The Webby Awards have been running since 1996, with the goal of honouring excellence on the Internet. Presented by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, the Webby Awards honour online excellence in seven main categories - Websites, Advertising, Media and PR, Video, Apps/Mobile and Voice, Social, Podcasts and Games.

Previous winners of Webby Awards have included David Bryne, UN Women and Banksy - putting the RSA in good company and celebrating the impact the Shorts series has had.

The RSA Shorts Series

The RSA Shorts series has been running since 2012 and was conceived as an ‘espresso for the mind’, giving people who may not have much time the opportunity to connect with the important ideas and topics of our time. The RSA paired a range of powerful speakers and talented, early stage animators to create engaging and informative vehicles for these important ideas.

Since 2012, the RSA Shorts series has tackled a whole host of ideas including empathy, economic growth, climate change and many more. Speaking with our founder, former RSA producer Abi Stephenson explained, ‘we originally conceived of them as a sort of afternoon espresso pick-me-up for the mind, and by using a variety of different animators and styles we hoped to inject that feeling of freshness and variety too.’

Here are just a few of our favourite RSA Shorts

Brene Brown on Empathy, animated by Katy Davis (AKA Gobblynne)

Simon Sinek on Intensity vs Consistency, animated by Jocie Juritz

Rutger Bregman on Where Do We Go From Here, animated by Jac Clinch & Diana Gradinaru

Sir Ken Robinson on Flourishing, animated by Molly Crabapple

Kate Raworth on Growth, animated by Marija Jacimovic and Benoit Detalle

We also had the honour of contributing two shorts of our own

Dan Pink on Persuasion

Dan Pink is a bestselling author and we made this RSA Short in 2014 to go with his talk on influencing and persuading people. Pink’s core idea is that in today’s world, regardless of our occupation we are all in sales, and to bring it to the screen we used a style very similar to the style we used in our RSA Animates.

The RSA on Universal Basic Income

We made this Short in 2017, explaining the concept of universal basic income - the idea that everyone would receive an income covering basic life costs. With the challenges brought by coronavirus this idea is again gaining traction as one way we can mitigate the harm caused to people. We used our whiteboard animation style to explain universal basic income, and the views and research around it.

Our passion is democratising knowledge, we love bringing complex and powerful ideas to the screen. It is at the heart of everything we do. We have been working with whiteboard animation since we created the RSA animates, and helped pioneer the style. We’ve found it is a very effective medium for communicating important information in a memorable way and in short time frame. We have interviews with the RSA an RSA shorts animators coming soon.

If we can help you share your message, please contact us today.

Cognitive are award-winning pioneers of whiteboard animation, and the creators behind the RSA Animates series. We help corporate, academic and charitable organisations like the BBC, TED, Coca Cola and Sanofi to tell their stories more powerfully. Find out more about us here.