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Favourite Projects

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BUCK - Notion AI Assistant

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How do you bring personality and charm to an AI assistant? 

This is the task BUCK had for their latest project for Notion.

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Last month, BUCK released “Nosy” bringing the previously static character to life. The team took the existing design, created by Notion’s Art Director, Roman Muradov, and injected it with fluidity and dynamism. 

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As stated in the launch video, all AI assistants currently look the same. That familiar overused sparkle icon - or the slightly more crude comparison) - most AI related products are lacking an identity that helps them stand out.

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The BUCK team started with cel animation, a technique that gives a handcrafted, charming feel, and created a series of reactive movements that “respond to user actions with personality”.

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The team perfectly balanced a distinctive charm, without creating something distracting from the user experience. Using Rive, BUCK created a “game-engine-style UX component”, allowing the unique “expressions to mix and match organically between states”..

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The finished product creates an AI assistant that feels less like a clunky robot tool and more of an “attentive companion”.

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Google - Material 3 Expressive

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This month, Google announced its latest update to Android’s Material - a way users can tailor and design the UI of their devices to feel more personal to them. 

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The announcement of the update was accompanied by a slick motion design launch film. However, we aren’t just including this because of the launch video. 

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This latest update to the Android platform serves as an indication of the importance of motion design in our everyday lives, and ties in nicely with some of our conversation with Santiago Avila, in which we are in a world where everything is moving.

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We’re increasingly seeing thoughtfully crafted motion become more important in UI and UX spaces. The way in which digital elements move when we interact with them creates higher levels of engagement and emotional connection. 

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Google’s latest update shows the importance of using motion to create elevated digital experiences for users.

The announcement comes just 4 weeks ahead of Apple’s WWDC event, where we typically see a preview of iOS. Apple has always been notoriously restrictive in allowing user customisation, though we have seen them ease up on this in recent years. It will be interesting to see if they continue to follow in Google’s footsteps and open up more user customisation next month.

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Why Motion Design Matters More Than Ever in Branding - with Santiago Avila from Koto.

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Myself and the team have always been huge fans of Koto’s work. Koto is a design studio who are pioneering the use of motion design systems in branding, often making it a core part of the identities they create for brands. 

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This month, I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to sit with their Motion Director, Santiago Avila, to understand more about how they approach using motion design in branding projects for companies like Amazon, Deezer, Microsoft, and more.

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Santiago talks us through how Koto takes an extremely thoughtful approach to using motion, often harnessing simplicity to create continuity through their projects. 

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You can check out the full conversation below.

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Studio Updates

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We’ve been continuing to work with our friends at Fight or Flight this month, working on assisting in elevating a client keynote through the use of impactful kinetic motion. 
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Some more of the visual work we developed for COLLAB also went live, which you can check out below.
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This month, Jimmy and Jack attended the D&AD festival in London. It was 2 days filled with incredible talks, conversations and work on show.
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Working with our friends at Hyperfocus, we’ll be releasing a vlog of our experience of the event, as well as some interview content we captured with speakers, industry leaders, and rising new talent. 
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With a lot of events on the horizon, we’ll be continuing to vlog our experiences and insights moving forward. With both SXSW London and Cannes next month, June’s edition of Months in Motion is already set to be an exciting one. 
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We’ll also be joined by the legendary Cat How, CEO, Founder & ECD of How&How Design Studio. Make sure to subscribe for plenty more content next month!

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