This page contains two case studies from my work with Amazon. Click the link below to jump to the next section.
Amazon
My Role:
Art Direction
Illustration
Motion Design
Visual Design
Digital Products
Amazon’s Digital Products department is one of the most innovative organizations in the company. Under that umbrella falls all things Alexa, Echo, FireTV and more. I had the pleasure of working on the team handling the Out of Box Experience (OOBE) for all of these products; in many ways the front line of Amazon.
The Position
As a Motion Designer for the OOBE team my key role was exploring visual styles, developing storyboards, and defining key animations for welcome videos across the Alexa & FireTV families of products. I was also heavily involved in everything from script writing, to content curation, to voiceover casting.
Various illustration style explorations.
The Puzzle
The videos needed to be in nine different languages, and designed modularly as to accommodate markets with varying features, and content. Adding to the challenge, we chose to test an experimental internal software used to compress videos and make them editable in real time for all FireTV welcome videos. This software was limited in it's animation functionality, which meant no vector shapes, no track mattes, and constrained simultaneous animations.
The Preparation
Pre-production of the OOBE videos was extensive, and involved the cooperation of many moving parts. We needed to clear the use of content through third party vendors, and obtain the approval of script verbiage, all while remaining committed to the delivery of a beautiful, functional welcome experience to millions of customers.
Segments of the Echo Dot welcome video
The Promise
These welcome videos were to be the perfect balance of marketing and education. It was important that the tone was not that of a sales pitch, but rather a friendly tip. We needed to relay vital functionality of a customers new device, while simultaneously informing them of the potential benefits they’d gain by expanding on this service.
Amazon
Customer Service
My Role:
Art Direction
Illustration
Motion Design
Visual Design
My most rewarding role across the numerous contracts I’ve held at Amazon was acting Creative Director for Customer Service design at Amazon's D1 Creative department—some would say the most customer centric team at the most customer centric company in the world. It’s me, I’m some.
CS character illustrations
The Task
I was ecstatic at the opportunity to work with Amazons brand new visual language, and completely refresh the look & feel of their Customer Service videos. There were hundreds of topics to cover, across dozens of devices and services.
The State of Things
Prior to my arrival Motion Designers were working in volume, making up visuals as they went. There was very little consistency, and a facelift was long overdue. My first course of action was to create a handful of 1-to-1 examples of how I could improve the CS visuals while incorporating the new greater Amazon style parameters.
Old
New
Working within Amazon’s greater brand guides, I took those three principles and set off to formulate an all encompassing style guide, complete with a demo video thoroughly showcasing animation styles and parameters for future motion designers to reference.
The Effort
I collaborated closely with the team’s senior motion designer, and project lead, to develop foundational principles necessary for a successful customer service video. We ultimately concluded that each video must be relaxed, focused, and Intentional.
Styleguide pages. Click to expand.
The Solve
While keeping the videos brand-forward, I proudly boiled down interfaces and devices to their key components, holding on to features vital to recognition such as the placement of interactive elements, and hierarchy.
After successful user testing we were confident our solution would effectively provide the help customers are seeking, in a concise and graceful manner. See a finished CS video below.