Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell is a Munich design and animation studio founded in 2012 by Philipp Dettmer and Stephan Rether. It is best known for its YouTube channel of the same name, launched the following year, which publishes minimalist animated explainers on science, medicine, philosophy, and the far future to an audience in the tens of millions. The name is German for "in a nutshell."
The studio's house style — flat vector shapes, saturated palettes, a small recurring cast of birds, and an unhurried narrator — became one of the most imitated visual grammars on the platform. Its editorial practice is unusually explicit for the format: source lists are published alongside videos, and the studio has withdrawn early videos it later concluded were wrong rather than leaving them up, publishing its reasoning each time. Revenue comes from a mix of viewer support, a merchandise and poster shop, and commissioned work, including science-communication projects funded by philanthropic foundations — an arrangement the studio discloses and which has drawn periodic scrutiny over editorial independence. Its recurring philosophical register, articulated most directly in 📝Optimistic Nihilism, holds that a universe without inherent meaning is liberating rather than bleak.