A cohesive brand experience requires consistency across all aspects of a brand's presence, including design elements like typography and colours, as well as often-overlooked components such as motion and audio branding. An established motion designer needs to work with comprehensive motion guidelines and contribute to their development when necessary. Exploring a brand's identity while pushing creative boundaries is a rewarding experience, and one of my favorite aspects of being a creative professional.
On this page, you'll find various examples of the motion and audio guidelines I helped create, illustrating my role in solidifying Hotjar's dynamic brand presence.
For the lower third design, I incorporated Hotjar's two primary brand elements: the trace line and the orb. The blur effect was inspired by the heat of the Hotjar flame. The colors used for the lower thirds are adaptable, as long as they align with the brand's color palette.
I created six variations of the endslate animation, available in three different lengths and two different colors. As with the lower thirds, the background color can be adjusted to match any color within the brand's color palette.
I hold dear the memories of my years studying at the MSGSU State Conservatory to become a concert pianist, before falling in love with design later on. This musical background has consistently proven valuable in my video work. I firmly believe that a high-performing video ad is incomplete without carefully chosen background music.
However, many companies with strong brands overlook the potential benefits of developing audio brand assets and music guidelines. Establishing these elements would not only assist their video teams in selecting the best audio tracks for projects but also build emotional connections with customers and strengthen brand recognition by differentiating themselves from competitors.
Here you can take a closer look at the music guidelines I created and below you can listen to the audio branding elements I collaborated with THNDR studio to create, guiding them through the process.
"Sila is a highly creative and technically gifted designer and has played a massive role in shaping the Hotjar brand. Across a whole range of projects Sila has been the go-to motion designer at Hotjar for helping build out Hotjar's brand identity; and consistently demonstrated exceptional creativity, strong proactive organisation and excellent motion design across every project she touches."