Fastly is a leader in the content delivery network (CDN) world. In the age of the attention economy, motion design is a powerful tool and often underutilised in B2B. Fastly’s creative team recognised the need for motion to level up their brand and approached us. They wanted to explain how their core products enable the best of the web to thrive and help people deliver better online experiences

Objectives

• - Create a series of compelling product videos to fill a content gap in their marketing in an engaging and impactful format.
• - To define and explain the core products – Network Services, Compute, and Security – highlighting the benefits and key differentiators to set them apart from competitors.
• - To explore the refreshed brand and guidelines and find the most appropriate way to bring it to life through motion.

To kick off this project we developed motion principles. Fastly had recently done a brand refresh, but it had no motion guidelines – so they didn’t know how their brand moved. We re-imagined how the brand transitioned into motion and storytelling to bring it to life. 

Crafting Motion Principles

Effective motion principles give you versatility and flexibility pushing your brand identity further. We pondered how elements would reveal and transition, and how it played to the strengths of the Fastly brand. Movement is a form of communication, telling a story, making the brand cohesive, and infusing personality while being distinctive and ownable.

We explored different routes using motion as a tool to help tell the story for each product video – using layering, screen transitions, and rotations on screen. We wanted to convey the feeling of moving fast into or across the screen. Once the principles were in place, we got to work on the videos.

Route 1: Playful scenes and aesthetic innovation

We always explore different ways to interpret the brief. Guidelines by their very purpose allow for interpretation so we explored how we could bring them to life in motion. The first route was a playful scene-based approach born from the guidelines. They have a lot of wider aesthetic and illustrative scenes inspired by the end users.

Route 2: Graphic abstraction for speed and efficiency

The second route was a more abstract and graphic-based approach to communicate speed, scale and efficiency through shapes, texture, layering and depth. In its simplicity, we aimed to present big ideas by shifting perspective and revealing depth.

Final delivery: The best of both

Working closely with the Fastly team we evolved the creative approach to bring the best of both routes together to deliver compelling and impactful storytelling to their products. Using slightly paired back scenes and end-user environments with abstracted shape, layering and movement we had a versatile toolkit to take the audiences through their innovative products.

From website to Demand Gen

To give them bang for their buck, we made these motion pieces versatile. Longer videos found a spot on their website and YouTube, shorter ones for social channels, and a custom version for paid social and programmatic ad placements.

If your brand doesn’t have motion guidelines, product animations offer a great way to evolve your brand identity. Consider it a chance to expand brand guidelines to encompass motion seamlessly.