Explanatory Animation: Making a complex social issue accessible in a creative way

Client

TU Berlin

TU Berlin is in the midst of a cultural transformation. To complement existing equality initiatives, an explanatory video was created to make the topic of unconscious bias more accessible. The central creative question: How do you make visible what is invisible to most people? Cognitive biases constantly influence our perceptions and decisions—usually without us even noticing. The goal was to present a complex social issue in a way that is understandable, relatable, and visually engaging, without oversimplifying or lecturing.

Services

Concept
Storytelling
Copywriting & Storyboard
Illustration & Animation — diversity-conscious
Sound Design
Accessible Design (captions, gender-sensitive language)

Challenge

We don’t open the topic with definitions, but rather with questions. Questions that everyone is familiar with: Who comes to mind when you think of a professor? Or an engineer? This approach makes our own thought patterns tangible—it fosters connection rather than distance, self-reflection rather than lecturing.

Step by step, the animation translates complex social issues into concrete everyday situations: gender bias in hiring processes, intersectional perspectives in everyday university life, anti-Chinese sentiment as an example of structural discrimination. Each sequence opens up new perspectives without pointing fingers.

Illustration of an Asian woman balancing many geometric shapes in her hands

Visual design

The animation and illustration style was developed with a consistent focus on diversity—in addition to gender-sensitive language, subtitles, and accessible design, the team also addressed the possible reproduction of stereotypes in the illustrations. The simple shapes are both minimalist and adaptable. They can be combined into new compositions and take on a variety of appearances. This visual language supports the animation’s core message: identity traits are objectively comparable and similar. Subjectively, however, they coalesce into something that distorts our perception.

Image frames from different points of the animation arranged side by side

Effect

The video has been firmly integrated into TU Berlin’s internal training sessions and workshops on unconscious bias—serving as a scientifically grounded introduction—and is firmly embedded in the university’s equality program. The university shared it on LinkedIn with its own editorial commentary and positioned it as a contribution to equal opportunity at TU Berlin.