About us / Team
Founder & Creative Director

Thibault van der Laan

I am Thibault, founder and Creative Director of Animation Agency. I help organizations reduce complex products, processes, and stories to a clear visual message.

My role lies primarily at the beginning and oversees the entire production. I fathom the brief, determine the content and creative direction together with the team, and ensure that the end result is not only visually strong but also actually does what it is supposed to do.

In doing so, I look beyond a single animation. I want to understand what an organization is trying to explain, where the complexity lies, and which format best helps to make that information understandable.

Portrait photo of Thibault van der Laan, Strategist & Founder of Animation Agency
13+
years of experience
Since 2013
entrepreneur
Strategy
concept and creative direction
3.000+
productions with Animation Agency

Specializations

Have a strategy, concept development, storyboarding, 2D animation, 3D animation, 3D visualization, and infographic created.

My strength

Getting to the point quickly

In many organizations, the knowledge is already present, but it is scattered across documents, presentations, and various stakeholders.

My strength is quickly extracting the essence. What does the target audience really need to understand? What makes a product, service, or process special? What information is needed to follow the story, and what actually distracts?

Making those choices early creates a much stronger foundation for the script, storyboard, and visual execution.

Visually structuring complex information

I frequently work on issues where technology, processes, or large amounts of information need to be made understandable.

In doing so, I look not only at what we are telling, but especially at the sequence, visual hierarchy, and the relationship between text, image, and movement.

My goal is not to simplify complex content by omitting important information. Rather, I want to find a structure that allows someone to grasp the essence more quickly without the content losing its meaning.

Choosing a direction and monitoring quality

During a production, choices are constantly made regarding story, style, level of detail, pacing, and technique.

My role is often to provide direction in this process and maintain coherence. I take a critical look at the concept, script, storyboard, and final execution, and where necessary, I question whether a choice actually contributes to the story.

In doing so, I work closely with the specialists within the team. My task is not to perform every discipline myself, but to ensure that all disciplines ultimately support the same narrative.

Work

A selection of projects I have worked on.

View all our work →

My entrepreneurial journey began during my studies. In 2013, I started my own business, and since then, I have essentially always been busy building and improving ideas, companies, and productions.

I love a fast pace, clear choices, and people who take responsibility for what they create. At the same time, I find it important that work remains enjoyable. I get energy most from building something together that keeps getting better, and from the people around me who are really good at something.

Outside of work, I also enjoy being active and prefer gaining a wide variety of experiences. I love events, new places, and experiencing things that are completely separate from work. To keep that a bit in balance, I also try to work out occasionally.

In addition, new technology and creative tools quickly grab my attention. I find it interesting to discover which new possibilities actually add value to how we develop and visualize stories.

Background

From 2010 to 2014, I studied Animation / Audiovisual Design at SintLucas, where I completed my studies with an excellent grade.

In 2013, during my studies, I started as an entrepreneur in marketing, animation, and visual communication. From that combination of creativity and entrepreneurship, I built Animation Agency .

In the early years, I was personally much more involved in the execution of productions. As the team grew, my role shifted increasingly towards strategy, concept development, positioning, and creative direction.

That operational background still helps me. I know how a production is built and which choices have consequences later in the process. This allows me to take a critical look right from the start at what we need to communicate and how we can best visualize it.

I work in both Dutch and English.

Want to brainstorm about your project?

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Network

A fixed core team, with a network of specialists surrounding it.

For each project, we assemble the team that matches the requirements. This way, you work with a dedicated point of contact and the power of a network of specialists.

3D artists
2D animators
Illustrators
Scriptwriters
Storyboard artists
Voice-overs in multiple languages
Sound designers
Composers

Ready to take your A to AA?

Whether it concerns an ambition, product, process, technology, or idea: we make visible what makes it special and translate it into imagery that is clear, convincing, and impossible to ignore.

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