Want to blow the competition’s website away? Don’t say anything.
This website proves that a writer’s first rule “show, don’t tell” is also the key to great digital storytelling.
I’ve got a crush. It’s not on a writing style I’ve fallen for or on a really great story I wish I’d written.
It actually has nothing to do with writing—on the surface. And yet it has everything to do with writing.
It all began with an assignment I had to write. The subject: Top 2022 UX trends.
Untrendy
I’m not a huge believer in compiling trends lists, UX or otherwise. I mean, who wants to be trendy? I do sometimes like reading them, especially if they’re thoughtful and well-researched.
And I can’t deny this: I sometimes find cool stuff on those lists that I fall instantly in love with and wish I had the tools, and brains, to do myself.
Like scrolling transformations.
Call me trendy, but I love them.
The beauty of scrolling transformations
If you’re not into web design, scrolling transformations are basically interactive, JavaScript-powered animations that come to life when you get to a specific point on a webpage, usually on the vertical axis. They let you do amazing things like this and this.
Joseph Berry’s kickass Goonies tribute website, made with Webflow, uses Green Sock scrolling transformations to draw readers into its story.
Cool, huh?
But scrolling transformations aren’t just motion-activated eye candy. They’re a huge design breakthrough if you’re creating any kind of digital brand experience.
You see, scrolling transformations give you incredible control over two crucial parts of the narrative process that up until now have been virtually straightjacketed by a static, unidirectional web design mentality: how and when your content appears to the viewer.
As you can see just from the two examples above, the implications, and creative possibilities, of that new approach are vast.
But one thing is certain.
Our frozen, knife-cut, flat-and-material-design-inspired websites from 2016–2020 are already starting to feel like plastic dummies in the early humans dioramas at the American Museum of Natural History.
Am I exaggerating?
Weirdly, not really.
My design crush
Maybe you’ve guessed it. I have a crush on a scrolling transformation.
Sort of.
More like a whole website.
ToyFight is a Manchester-based digital agency I found while I was researching scrolling transformations, and I can’t stop looking at their transformations or their web design.
It’s fabulous. It’s unique. The colors are wild. The gimmick is top-notch. I mean, can you resist a tiny 3D designer riding a dinosaur? Or Hulk Hogan in a virtual leg lock? Or a navigation menu that moves horizontally, for that matter?
I can’t.
ToyFight’s eye-catching banners (with 3D models designed by Anna Schmelzer) succeed in the one key area where most websites fail: phrasing a brand identity at a glance.
But after I got past the awesomeness factor of what was essentially a totally new take on full-screen banners, I realized that something much smarter was going on on the ToyFight website.
In short, I had a moment of web mindfulness when I was simultaneously falling in love with great design but also aware of the technique behind it.
Show, don’t tell
Writers, CMOs, entrepreneurs, what makes ToyFight’s website so great is that it isn’t telling us anything — or very little. It’s showing us everything.
In other words, all you need is the intro banner to understand that ToyFight executes extraordinary projects, are first-rate thinkers, and understand and practice their craft as well or better than anyone else.
Whatever they say about themselves, whatever projects they showcase, is just icing on the cake.
Notice, too, the absence of bullshit promises, cookie-cutter capabilities or dime-a-dozen expertise. Notice it and bask in it.
And try to remember that for the next story you curate, publish or write.
Showing, at its most basic, leaves gaps in content, whether it’s design or writing. Those gaps are what give audiences something to do with their brains: to connect the dots, solve the problem, figure out the message.
And they’re actually happier that way because you’re giving them what they crave: the chance to think for themselves.
The lesson here is simple.
Ideas speak louder than words. Doing is better than saying. Showing is always better than telling — especially with scrolling transformations.
