How To Make COVID Safety GIFs And Have Fun as a Team

Social distancing TETRIS, floating mask safety, and more!

This year, we launched the Visme GIF maker. We can’t tell you the level of excitement going through the team when it was announced. Especially in the social media department!

In the first couple of weeks, we did lots of testing to weed out any bugs. We decided to have a little fun and announced a GIF contest for the entire Visme team.

At that time, more than half of our team members were under lockdown in different parts of the world. We thought a GIF contest would help everyone feel a little better, plus help the developers know what needed tweaking in the GIF maker.

The content team got together and set up a set of rules and guidelines for our team to follow. And that’s when the first-ever Visme GIF Contest was born!

We asked team members to create GIFs on topics that had to do with what’s going on in our world. The pandemic, staying at home, social distancing, being positive, etc.

The convocation for the contest was organized via Slack and the recollection of the designs inside a Google Drive folder. They also had guidelines for reporting any bugs in the GIF maker while they were creating.

Every day for a week our members uploaded their GIFs into the folder to await the choosing of the winners. We saw so much creativity and humor! It was truly a treat to get to see all their creations.

A couple of weeks later, we conducted a 48-hour team voting session with the help of a trusty Google sheet. We chose the five GIFs that got the most votes and put them here for you to enjoy — a few of them are also templates you can customize yourself!

But first, check out how to create social media graphics with Visme, including GIFs!

The Winning GIFs

Below you’ll see the five GIFs that got the most votes. Some of these were turned into GIF templates so you can use them too! All the GIF templates in the Visme GIF Maker are fully customizable, just like our static templates.

Check out our team members’ GIFs!

1. Social Distancing is Not a Game

Alejandra is one of our templates designers. Her GIF won the contest.

She used one of our all-time favorite video games, Tetris, to create an analogy about social distancing. Tetris is a game where you have to fit pieces between other pieces to create lines and clear them from the board.

The pieces must be close to each other to create the lines. The perfect opposite of social distancing. She used the Tetris pieces separated away from each other to show how it’s important to keep your distance during the pandemic.

Alejandra won the GIF contest with her Tetris concept!

Customize and create your own GIF using this template! Edit and download here.

2. This Will Pass, Think Positive

Daniela is one of our graphic designers. She designs visuals for our site and blog.

Daniela designed a GIF with virus-related visuals to invite everyone to be positive. Even in difficult situations, we can try and see the positives so it’s easier to overcome the hardships.

She used some of our animated gestures and icons to illustrate her vision.

Her inspiring GIF ended up in second place behind Alejandra’s GIF by only one vote. Goes to show how much we all need positivity in our lives.

Create a GIF using this template. Customize it here.

3. Protect Yourself From Covid-19 With a Face Mask

Monfa is our UI/UX designer and illustrator. He creates all the little characters that you see in our brand visuals.

His GIF was all about how a mask can protect us from Covid-19. He used one of our animated characters and some animated icons. He created the mask with a set of shapes in a light blue color.

This animated GIF template is ready for you to change to your brand colors and share it away on socials!

4. Stay Home Announcement

Julia is one of our animators. She works on our videos and animated features.

In her GIF entry, Julia uses a creative mixture of photography, icons and animated features. She used visual storytelling to portray a person inside their house thinking of ways to stay safe from Covid-19.

The character then announces that we should all Stay Home! Use this GIF template to send the message to your followers.

Customize this template to make your own GIF. Create it here.

5. Have the Courage to be Kind in a Crisis

Mahnoor is part of our content team. She writes, edits and helps to manage our overall content strategy.

For her animated GIF, Mahnoor visualized an inspiring message about being kind. When someone feels down and blue, you can have the courage to be kind. Most probably making them feel better.

Mahnoor’s GIF uses two of our animated characters and icons to send her message across.

Make your own custom GIF using this template. Find the template here.

Discover More GIF Templates

So, what did we learn from the Visme GIF contest?

Mostly, it reminded us that GIFs are super fun! Both making and sharing them.

Our designers have been making lost of GIF templates for you since we launched the GIF maker. You’ll find them inside your Visme dashboard when you search for social media graphics. The animated templates have a yellow lightning bolt as a label.

There’s no limit to what type of graphic you can turn into a GIF. All you have to do is animate the elements in a harmonious way, and add some animated icons for flair.

When creating a GIF with the GIF maker, we suggest you always use the preview/present mode to see how it’s turning out.

Square GIF Templates

Square GIFs are best suited for Instagram and Facebook. Create blog post title graphics, promotional designs, digital flyers, inspirational quotes, or color palettes. As long as the animation is balanced with the design, your GIFs can make an impact on social media.

Color Palette GIF

Color enthusiasts will love this color palette GIF template. The colors stagger in from the bottom with a nice and simple flow. All you have to do to make this your own is to change the image and the colors. Our favorite tool to extract colors from an image is Adobe Color.

Customize this template and make it your own. Edit and download here.

Promotional Photography GIF

Promote your photography business, or any business, with an animated GIF. This GIF template is perfect for any type of small business needing a bit of a boost. Replace the animated icon with one that matches your business and simply change the content.

Create your own GIFs using this template. Find and download it here.

Horizontal GIF Templates

Horizontal GIFs work on Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter really well. They also work quite well as blog and newsletter headers. Be sure to keep in mind that GIFs will upload onto Facebook as videos.

Improve Your Life GIF

This GIF template is perfect for blog post promotion. You can add this GIF in your blog post and then use it to promote on social media.

Customize this template to make an awesome GIF! Find and download it here.

Science Fair GIF

Animated GIFs make perfect digital flyers. Promote any type of event by including just the right amount of information in your GIF. Then promote on social media with inviting copy.

Create a new GIF using this template. Edit and download it here.

Vertical GIF Templates

Vertical GIFs are best for Instagram and Facebook stories. If you want to use an animated graphic for Pinterest, you’ll need to download it as an MP4 video. You’ll also need to make sure it’s at least 15 seconds long.

Foodie Instagram Story GIF

Sharing an animated graphic on your Instagram stories will usually get more people to stop swiping left and swipe up instead. This template from the Visme GIF maker is perfect for professional bloggers and online businesses.

Create your own GIF using this template. Edit and download here.

Places to Travel GIF

GIFs don’t always need to be created with animated graphics. As you can see in the GIF template below, you can use images and photographs with animated settings. Simply replace the default image with yours.

Create your own amazing GIF using this template. Find it here.

Discover the Visme GIF Maker

If you’ve been looking for a way to improve your visual marketing strategy, GIFs might just be the way to go!

Use the Visme GIF maker to create all sorts of GIFs. Try one of the templates above or create your own from scratch. The animation controls are easy to adjust with different entry and exit allocations.

Mix and match static and animated graphics for a unique design. Try adding photography overlaid with illustrations or inside unique frames.

Then, after you’ve created your GIFs, share them on social media using our #madewithvisme tag. We’d love to see them!

The original version of this post first appeared on Visme’s Visual Learning Center.