Medieval manuscript style explainer videos

Burnished gold leaf, Gothic arches and blackletter on parchment. Brief it in one sentence and get a narrated, animated explainer film in the Illuminated manuscript style, scored and voiced, in about 15 minutes.

Make one in this style

Or let the director choose a style for your topic.

A frame in the Illuminated manuscript style

What it looks like, and when to use it.

Gold leaf that catches the light, Gothic arches, bold flat figures, blackletter text with red key words, and margins full of vines, snails and mice. The illuminated manuscript look is drawn in code, so the gold glints as it moves and the page writes itself as the narrator speaks.

Best for

Medieval history and religion
Books, writing and knowledge
Stories with gentle humour

Try a brief like

“How monks copied books before printing”
“What caused the Black Death”
“How medieval castles were defended”

The art direction the director follows.

Every style is a full art direction, not a filter: its own palette, type, motion and music. This is the brief the director works from for Illuminated manuscript.

Look: Gothic illuminated manuscript drawn in code, in the manner of the late 13th century: a parchment page with a burnished gold-leaf ground tooled in a diamond lattice; Gothic arches, pinnacles and stained-glass roundels framing the scene; figures in flat red, blue and pink with bold dark ink outlines and naive, expressive faces; haloes; ivy-leaf border vines with gold bezants; small marginal creatures (snails, mice, knights); blackletter text with red key words.
Motion: Courtly, with life at the edges: a glint of light sweeps across the gold, stained glass twinkles, border vines and leaves sway, marginal creatures crawl and scamper, characters move in simple gestures, and text and initials are written in.
Music: Medieval: plainchant voices, lute, recorder, psaltery, a soft drone and hand bells.
Type: Blackletter (UnifrakturMaguntia) in dark ink on parchment, with key words in vermilion red and a framed gold initial at the start of each passage.