How the TED Machine was builtWhen illustrator/storyteller Oliver Jeffers and animator/woodworker Mac Premo get together, sketchbooks travel 60,000 miles, suitcases wander the streets of Brooklyn and sandwiches are skewered with bows and arrows. Jeffers and Premo created the opening video for TED2013 — and its star, the TED Machine. The TED Machine works like a schedule board in an old […]
10 adorable animated characters from the first year of TED-EdA year ago today, the TED-Ed website launched. Since then, the site has published 175 original animated lessons, ranging from “How simple ideas lead to scientific discoveries“ to “Insults by Shakespeare,” with visits from more than 2,750,000 people. Teachers have used the site to create roughly 2,000 lessons per month around YouTube videos. (Here’s how.) For […]
The 10 most popular TED-Ed lessons so farThe TED-Ed team is excited to have just passed our one-year mark — we launched our YouTube Channel on March 12, 2012. And what a year it has been! In 365 days, we have published more than 100 TED-Ed Originals plus nearly 100 TED Talks, totaling more than 16 million views. And we have almost 100 additional […]
A Scrabble board of TED FellowsWhile the majority of the TED Fellows headed to TED2013 to give talks on their incredible work, a smaller group headed to TEDActive, representing the program while embedded in the Palm Springs action. Artist Colleen Flanigan was among them, and created this adorable, Scrabble-themed animation to represent the Fellows there with her. Here’s what she […]
Seeds for healthy cells, candy for cancer: The stop motion tricks behind this TED-Ed lessonMaking this TED-Ed video required (a) a lot of knitting and (b) a ton of boxes of Nerds. When it came time to animate the lesson “How do cancer cells behave differently from healthy ones?” from educator George Zaidan, our TED-Ed animators had a crazy idea for how to make cell division come alive — […]
Introverts, (gently) rejoice! We found a web series just for youYou may remember Susan Cain’s revolutionary talk from TED2012, on the quiet, unseen power of introverts. Careful to acknowledge that many of us hold both extroverted and introverted traits, she points out that many of our most publically treasured figures have introverted tendencies — yet we still “favor the man of action over the man […]
Can bologna be educational? Absolutely. TED-Ed shows how.In the TED-Ed lesson “Magical metals, how shape memory alloys work,” animator Andy London had a creative idea for how to bring a science lesson from Ainissa Ramirez to life — by putting faces and matchstick limbs on bologna to create walking, talking atoms. This materials science lesson teaches that, in certain metals, atoms are […]
Creating the psychopath experience: TEDTalks from Julian Treasure and Evan GrantJon Ronson got by with a little help from two friends at TED2012 as he told the story of Tony, a man who faked insanity when facing jail time after a fight — but did it far too well, ending up in a psychiatric hospital for 14 years under the label of “a psychopath.” Standing […]
Public Sphere: Opening animation from TEDGlobal 2012 Session 12Mission: Radical spreading from a uniform block to a more freeform organic experimental shape. Director’s statement: “I wanted to create an explosion of vector abstract pop and colored animation. Organic and geometric shapes, characters growing around the central information.” — Superdeux Direction and design: Superdeux http://www.superdeux.com Animation and sound design: Friends Of Mine http://www.friendsofmine.tv Agency: […]
Public Sphere: Session 12 at TEDGlobal2012Click to watch the session-opening animation. We end TEDGlobal2012 with a session that steps back and asks, “How do we, as a society, communicate with each other?” The public sphere, the place where we engage with society at large, has undergone tremendous change — driven and empowered by the digital revolution, but also, perhaps, by a deeper […]
Reframing: Opening animations from TEDGlobal 2012 Session 10Brief: Radical Openness through open source motion graphics. Welcome to be re-used and remixed. Director’s statement: “Motion graphic animations based on colors, patterns and schemes. Project these onto various surfaces which break the light coming from the projector. Think mirrors, glass, water etc. All the moving images we use to build our films are available […]
Long Term: Opening animation for TEDGlobal 2012 Session 7Brief: People are similar to any good idea. It goes through an adventure to become mature. Director’s statement: “We drew a character with a massive pile of hair containing bits of his world. We see bits and pieces of his widening and deepening life until we reach his older self.’ – Hobson-Chant Direction and Illustration: […]
Naif Al-Mutawa and his 99 superhoes fight onAt TEDGlobal 2010 Dr. Naif Al-Mutawa introduced us to THE 99, a comic book and animated series featuring a team of 99 young superheroes inspired by the 99 attributes of Allah. These young characters are the world’s first superheroes based on Islamic culture. Earlier this year at TEDGlobal Al-Mutawa discussed the criticisms he received for […]
