Google Brand Studio

Production Case Study

Editorial Bottleneck & Inconsistencies

What are the pain points?

Telling compelling stories was difficult when we didn’t have the right tools. The motion designers should never be a bottleneck but an equal partner at the table.

A few caveats:

Know the process; I spent months focused on animation and talking through pain points with folks before I considered jumping into motion graphics templates.
With the last contract extensions, I was explicitly given the green light to carve out +20% of the time to work on tools.
We had three to four motion designers at a time, with folks rolling onto and off the team.
We transitioned into a remote team during the pandemic, so we needed to take the initiative in finding our own solutions.

Search Bar

The iconic Search Bar goes through periodic refreshes, but as campaigns can be in development with indeterminate production schedules and partners with air dates in flux, it was easy for this element to be inconsistent.

We started with an audit:

Search Queries
- Always changing based on character length and, most importantly, data
Visual treatment
- On footage
- Without the Super G
- Without Bar
Aspect Ratio
Mobile vs Desktop

After migrating the team away from Illustrator, we made a matrix in Figma.

This made it easier to iterate and lock static designs with the Group Creative Director and the Visual Designer.

Once the design was locked, I dug into new properties that could be driven with expressions and started to pile on the complexity based on rounds of feedback with Editors and Animators.

Supers

To templatize or not?

There can be technical limitations and learning curves which can slow down adoption.
Sometimes the right call is not right now.
Document and clarify why development is on hold, so it’s easier to pick back up later.

Google My Business Card Transition

Transitions with the footage were easy for Animators in After Effects, but Editors in Premiere had to be mindful of time remapping not being currently supported. This could be resolved with documentation or a workshop as the value for Editors to audition clips on their end with the transition in tack translated into less thrash in their edits’ overall timing.

Virtuous Cycle

Social Deliverables

When working on larger deliverable sets, I found that there was a cumulative effect on my productivity as an animator.

I could quickly identify design inconsistencies and, during production, introduce simple expressions to speed up the iteration process.

Year In Search Social Stories

Ticker tape text element spacing inconsistencies
- Adjusted padding in Figma with Autolayout
- Saw an opportunity with after effects expressions
- Rapid prototype = time savings