COMBINING ROCKET SCIENCE WITH ANIMATION AND SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING

EPISODE 21 HIGHLIGHTS

Iliya’s online persona, Spaceiac, publishes engaging, easy-to-understand explainer content that simplifies the complicated science behind rockets. Together, Derek and Iliya discuss why Iliya chose animation, developing an animation style, and how Iliya uses animation to simplify complex ideas.

When Iliya was still a teenager, someone introduced him to Kerbal Space Program, a video game where users take control of an alien space program. This game was Iliya’s initial introduction to rockets and space travel, and it piqued his interest. He went on to study electrical engineering and computer science at university before dropping out to pursue Spaceiac full time.

When he first started Spaceiac, the page acted as a journal of Iliya’s own learnings. As he conducted research for himself, he decided to document his findings, generating a social media following as he went.

Iliya initially chose animation as his medium because of its simplicity. Looking back at old cartoons, he found that he could follow the storyline without hearing any audio, which would help his videos translate nicely to Instagram.

“I know [from cartoons], if you take away the voice-overs and everything, the story is still coherent, and that’s one of the things that’s really great with 2d animation.” (22:00)

He also found that animation was beneficial for quickly directing the viewer’s focus. When using live footage, it’s nearly impossible to remove the visual clutter outside of the video’s primary focus. With animation, Iliya can simplify the images, drawing the viewer’s eyes to the parts of the rocket that the video focuses on.

This theme of simplicity runs through the entirety of the Spaceiac platform. Iliya knows that rocket science is often intimidating, but he believes that anyone can understand the inner workings of a rocket.

“I try to explain it as simple as possible so that even my smaller siblings understand it, and they are 10 and 11. So, if I can explain that to them, I’m pretty sure that everybody can understand it.” (16:01)

Often, he will utilize analogies and imagery to clarify lessons that might otherwise be quite complicated. For instance, when explaining why rockets need a heat shield for their reentry into the atmosphere, he uses a bike pump to illustrate the laws of thermodynamics.

As for the future, Iliya wants to take Spaceiac to YouTube. He believes that longer-form animated content will be helpful for Spaceiac, and he expects much of his audience to follow his work as he experiments on a new platform. Iliya is not a fan of static content; he thinks that your audience gets bored if you don’t continue evolving, so be on the lookout for new evolutions of Spaceiac content in the future!

“If you try to improve your content and you actually experiment a little bit, you first make your content really unique and stand out from the rest, and people really appreciate the work because if they go through your feed and everything, they really see the progression curve of all that.” (6:49) 

Are you interested in creating short-form, animated explainer videos for your brand? Schedule a call with us today!