Adding animations to your WordPress website is a great way to enhance its visual appeal and keep visitors engaged. One of the most popular ways to do this is by using Lottie animations, which are high-quality and lightweight. They are becoming increasingly popular among designers and animators across different markets, thanks to their versatility and easy implementation for both B2C and B2B websites.
What are Lottie Animations?
Lottie is a library for Android, iOS, Web, and Windows that renders After Effects animations and allows the animation data to be exported as JSON files. This open-source solution was first introduced by the team at AirBnB and is quickly picking up in popularity. One big advantage of using Lottie animations in your WordPress website is that the file size is very small compared to GIF animation or mp4 files. Additionally, the flexible animation format allows the browser to handle the rendering.
Creating Lottie Animations
When considering whether to add Lottie animations to your site, you’ll first need to decide whether to do a stock or custom approach. With any type of animation, less is always more. When incorporating an animated element into a website redesign, consider what role that animation is serving in the customer’s journey.
Custom Lottie Animations
If you are looking for a custom Lottie animation for your website, you’ll need to work with an animator or designer who specializes in Adobe After Effects and is familiar with this type of animation. Once you decide on the graphic elements and animation effects, the animator will need to create the custom animations in Adobe After Effects and export them as Lottie animations, using the After Effects extension.
Stock Lottie Animations
Stock Lottie animations are a great option if you want to expedite your new design. You can look for an existing stock Lottie animation and if need be, customize it to fit your brand. Lottie Files is a stock website where you can find a large number of free and paid Lottie animations. The site also offers an editing tool where you can edit the colors of the animation before downloading.
Adding Lottie Animations in WordPress
It is a pretty smooth process for adding Lottie animations to a WordPress website. You can either utilize a custom HTML widget to add the animation code to the site, or utilize a WordPress plugin to add the animation.
Custom HTML Widget
A skilled WordPress developer can use a small JavaScript library and a custom HTML widget to add the Lottie animations to the site. This streamlined approach can be a great fit for most WordPress sites because it avoids weighing down the site with additional WordPress plugins.
WordPress Plugin Options
If you don’t want to use a developer to do it the custom way, another option to add Lottie widgets to your site is to use a WordPress plugin. Elementor Pro – Lottie Widget and Gutenberg Blocks – Ultimate Addons are two popular plugins that allow you to add Lottie animations without code and customize the dimensions and behavior of the animation.
Time to Get Animating
Lottie animations are extremely accessible to anyone with a WordPress site. Whether you want customized animations or stock animations, hero animations or scrolling ones, the resources are at your fingertips. When you start to explore the possibilities of Lottie animations, you will start to realize just how much they can add to the quality of your website.
