What is lottie animation? 5 reason to use lottie animations on your website
By James Murray
In the ever-evolving world of web design, animations have become a great tool for enhancing user experience and engagement, adding splashes of colour and movement to an otherwise static screen. However, traditional animations in standard video formats such as mp4, mov or gif can be bulky, slow, and difficult to implement efficiently. That’s where Lottie animations come in.
What is lottie animation?
Lottie is an open-source animation file format developed by Airbnb that enables designers and developers to integrate high-quality, lightweight animations into websites and apps seamlessly. Unlike GIFs or traditional video-based animations, Lottie files are JSON-based, meaning they are scalable, lightweight, and highly customisable. In this blog, we explore 5 reasons why you should be harnessing the power of lottie animations for your websites and mobile apps.
1. They are lightweight and fast-loading
One of the biggest advantages of Lottie animations is their minimal file size, with up to 600% smaller file sizes than using standard video formats. Since they are vector-based and use code based JSON data, they load much faster compared to GIFs or MP4 videos, ensuring that your website’s speed and performance remain optimal.
2. Scalability without loss of quality
Much like svg files, lottie animations are resolution-independent and vector based, meaning they look sharp and crisp on any screen size—whether it’s a mobile device, tablet, or desktop screen. Unlike GIFs or videos, which can become pixelated when resized, Lottie files maintain their quality at any scale.
3. Seamless interactivity
Lottie files can be easily controlled and manipulated with JavaScript, CSS, or native mobile code. This allows for dynamic interactions like hover effects, click-based animations, or scroll-triggered movements, giving the user a more engaging and interactive browsing experience and making your website stand out from your competitors. Many website theme’s such as Avada in WordPress have integrated lottie elements, allowing simple drag and drop with full functionality.
4. Cross-Platform Compatibility
Lottie animations work seamlessly across multiple platforms, including web, iOS, and Android. With support for major development frameworks like React, Flutter, and Swift, integrating Lottie animations into any project is easy and efficient.
5. Easy Customisation and Editing
Lottie animations can be easily customised to match your brand’s style. Since they are JSON-based, you can tweak colours, speeds, and other properties without needing to recreate the animation from scratch. Tools like Adobe After Effects, Lottiefiles and Bodymovin make exporting and editing lottie files simple.
Conclusion
Lottie animations offer a powerful way to create a unique and engaging website design while keeping performance and user experience in mind. With their lightweight nature, scalability, and interactivity, they are a game-changer for web designers and developers alike. If you haven’t yet explored Lottie, now is the perfect time to start integrating these dynamic animations into your website, and we are here to help!
