National Geographic – History: The Interesting Bits
Animation for History: The Interesting Bits, an 8-episode National Geographic series exploring the quirkier corners of history through imaginative illustration and graphics-driven storytelling.
When Impossible Factual and National Geographic commissioned us to animate History: The Interesting Bits, the scale of it was immediately clear. Eight episodes, ten minutes of animation each : 80 minutes of finished content in a style that didn't yet exist, built from scratch by a large team of artists, animators and compositors over several months.
The creative challenge was significant. History: The Interesting Bits covers stories from across history, many of which have little or no archive material to draw on. That means the animation isn't decorative, it's doing the storytelling. Imaginative illustration and characterful animation carry episodes that would otherwise have nothing to show.
The style we landed on has a clean, graphic energy that takes some inspiration from Monty Python but strips it back into something more contemporary. It moves quickly, it's visually inventive, and it suits the tone of the series perfectly: serious history told with a light touch.
Season 2, please!
For more on this kind of work, see our TV graphics production page.
