The Disney 12 principles of animation can be considered as a basis for all animation. These rules of animation may have been discovered decades ago, but they remain just as relevant today for everything from movies and cartoons to motion graphics and video games, despite technological changes (see our pick of the best animation software).
Disney's principles of animation were first laid out in 1982 in the book The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation. The animators Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas combed through the work of leading Disney animators from the 1930s onwards and broke down their approach to identify 12 basic principles.
