There are so many different styles of explanation videos. And so many names for each style of video. It can all get a bit confusing. So, we’re taking the most common mistake we see here and sorting it out once and for all.

We get a lot of customers looking for what are known as ‘Common Craft’ style videos. They see the ‘Dropbox’ explanation video that Common Craft made and ask us if we can make a video like that. Our response is always the same. “Common Craft made the Dropbox video, we can’t copy that style, be we can offer you one of our Hand Craft videos which have the same look and feel.”

We could copy it exactly if we really wanted to, but we don’t. We’ve built up our own variation of the style. There are a few key differences.

• We don’t shoot on a whiteboard. We shoot on paper instead.

• All of our characters have faces and detail.

• Our characters are all hand drawn. Not on a computer, but illustrated by hand on paper.

• We do not use stop motion animation. We animate using After Effects (Advanced Hand Craft & DigiCraft )

• Our text is hand drawn and not printed.

I could go on. I’m not denying that the videos do have the same feel. And I do understand why some folks get confused. They are ‘common craft’ style videos after all.

Our customers want simple explanations. And our aim is to explain as simply as possible using the style that our customer likes. Mostly, the common craft style video.

Here are two great example of our hand craft videos. We’ve made over 700 of them!

I want to see more examplesThe hand craft videos that we make were inspired by Common Craft. In fact, both Ailsa and I are huge fans of Lee and Sachi. And we understand why they are very protective over their brand hence writing this piece. We don’t pretend to be them. We don’t say that we are them. We never have and we never will. We are The Cuillin Collective. Not CommonCraft.

Both Ailsa and I are extremely proud of our variation on the style. And our customers love them. That’s why we’ve been commissioned over 700 times in the past 3 years.

Although, some folks just plain don’t like us. Here is an example. I’ve no idea why a competitor (edit: please see comment below) would say such things. I might not agree with how some people make their money (eg, Walter White) but I wouldn’t troll the internet looking to abuse them. And if you’d like a different example, here is another.

So, onto the point. If you’d like a video created by CommonCraft then please use CommonCraft. However, if you’d like one of our Hand Craft explanation videos (not a video created by CommonCraft) then simply visit our explanation videos page.