For subtle animation with big impact, cinemagraphs are the way to go. They’re basically a majestic mix between photo and video, but they offer more grace and professionalism than your standard GIF does. Ultimately, it gives the appearance of a ‘moving’ still photo, and it’ll certainly make your site visitors do a double take.
Perhaps best of all is the fact that a cinemagraph is a smaller file size, so you can even load it on your mobile device without needing to press ‘play’ on a video. In the era of mobile optimization, it’s a pretty sweet way to spiff up your site.
If you’d like to try out this trend for yourself, there are plenty of apps available (we like Flixel) or you can do it in Photoshop — here’s a great tutorial!