The 12 Principles
of Animation

Created by Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas in their 1981 book The Illusion of Life, the 12 Principles of Animation are a series of rules followed by professional animators to give their work a sense of being grounded within reality.

The 12 principles are as follows: appeal, anticipation, arc, Exaggeration, follow-through and overlapping action, staging, secondary action, slow in and slow out, solid drawing, straight-ahead action and pose-to-pose, squash and stretch, and finally, timing.

This project showcases each principle through a small animation to serve as an example of what it demonstrates.