Let's MOVE: Morgan's POV on Motion Design

We’re way past the point of asking if motion matters. It does. Your audience expects it. The scroll never stops. The pixels demand more.

Thankfully, at NEXT, we have our own Motion expert. So we asked him, Morgan, how he’s seeing brands use motion not just to look cool, but to actually build better identities, drive behavior, and create the kind of moments that stick in your brain like the world’s best jingle.

Here’s his POV on the power of motion—and where it’s headed next.

Q: HOW IS MOTION SHAPING MODERN BRAND IDENTITIES? WHAT ARE THE BEST BRANDS DOING RIGHT?

More and more, motion is becoming non-negotiable. I mean, like it or not we’ve fully entered our TikTok era as a society. There are well over 1 BILLION humans actively using TikTok in the world, where motion is the expectation for content, and other platforms are following suit. This ever-growing expectation of movement is bleeding into all other media formats—websites, presentations, conference activations, you name it. DANCE MONKEY DANCE. The best brands are keeping up with this trend, and considering motion as a part of their brand. Which means they’re also building a motion system that clearly represents their personality in a way that static design just can’t do.

Q: HOW ARE BRANDS USING MOTION IN WAYS THAT INSPIRE YOU AND WHY?

With any motion design, the DESIGN part comes first. You need to know what something looks like before you can make it move. Talented designers make great design systems, then talented motion designers make those great designs move. Often that’s the end of the road, you have your static design system, then you add a motion portion to it. Done and dusted.

But what often has to happen in that process of animation is an expansion of ‘rules’ that the designers have set for their work. Think about it– if we want a logo, or a pattern, an icon, or a shape to move, it has to change, thus expanding upon what the designer determined that asset should look like and “breaking” their design ruleset.

A single second of animation can be 8, 12, 24, 30, even 60 images—each one its own design. Pause on any frame, and you’ll usually find something new: a shape, a pattern, a moment that expands the original rules of the brand system. How do different elements of the design interact when they come to life? How do those individual elements move on their own? How much ‘space’ lives between items that overlap? That’s the magic of motion: All these little questions push design thinking further.

But a lot of times, that evolved thinking stays siloed in the motion world and never makes its way back to the static system it came from. What inspires me most is when brands close the loop—when that expanded motion language feeds back into the static brand. That only happens when you bring a motion director in from the jump.

Q: HOW CAN BRANDS USE MOTION TO DO MORE THAN JUST 'LOOK GOOD' TO ACTUALLY SHAPE EXPERIENCE AND BEHAVIOR?

Being tasteful and intentional about when you choose to utilize motion is what sets a brand apart. Yes the world expects us to move more than ever, but motion should still always serve a function. We’ve all been to a website, seen a video, or watched a presentation where everything is moving all the time. It can become disorienting and overwhelming to the eye. Motion adds life. It’s so fun. But it should be used wisely to serve the audience with purpose, not just be flashy for flashiness’ sake.

Q: WHERE DO YOU SEE MOTION ADDING THE MOST VALUE ACROSS BRAND TOUCHPOINTS, LIKE CAMPAIGNS, EVENTS, DIGITAL, AND SOCIAL?

Social media feels like the obvious one here, right? TikTok put the final nail in the coffin for the entire social media landscape to prioritize motion. Remember when Instagram was about sharing photos? You can look at most metrics and see that motion outperforms static on basically any social platform these days. The catch here is social has an entirely different set of rules when it comes to how you present yourself. It has to be—or at least present as—organic. Looking buttoned up in the social landscape can often backfire. Your sleek graphic brand sizzle that makes your website shine won’t get nearly as much engagement as some lo-fi vid of your product in the middle of a pile of puppies or butts or whatever. It all hinges on your target demographic. If you’re trying to capture ‘the youths’, maybe keep your snazzy graphic sizzle to the website and try your hand at a few memes.

Motion in event activations gets an honorable mention as well (mostly because I get so stoked when those opportunities come across my desk.) Screen and projection tech is insane these days which allows us to think about adding motion in unexpected places. Think way bigger than an animated presentation screen (that’s the baseline now, FYI), but projection mapping to make the walls melt, or sculptural screens to interrupt commonspaces. The bar feels really high when you’re hosting an event, and motion really elevates things. Might sound corny, but I find so much beauty in creating a unique moment in time to experience with folks and once it’s done, that’s it. It just becomes memory, and if you do it right, that memory can last a long time.

Q: WHAT MOTION TRENDS ARE EXCITING–OR OVERRATED?

Same answer for both, Apple’s Liquid Glass.