Services / Motion graphics
Explain the complicated thing in thirty seconds.thirty seconds.
Motion graphics in Cleveland, Ohio, for the things a paragraph cannot do: a product that does six jobs, a process with five steps, a piece of software nobody has seen yet. Drawn in the brand's own language, then cut for every placement it has to run in.
01 What lands in the hand-off
One film, and every version it has to become.become.
A video is never one file any more. It is a feed square, a story, a landscape cut, a silent version and the logo sting on its own — all from one edit. This is what you actually receive.
- 01
The film
- The finished piece at full resolution
- Colour-graded and mixed
- Captions, burned in or as a file
- A clean version with no titles, for later re-use
- 02
The cutdowns
- Feed, story and landscape from one edit
- Fifteen, thirty and sixty second versions where they earn it
- A silent-safe cut for autoplay placements
- Every placement at its own spec
- 03
The pieces
- The logo animation on its own, as a loop and a sting
- Stills pulled as thumbnails and posters
- Any illustration or type built for the piece
- Lower-thirds and end cards you can reuse
- 04
The files
- Project files and assets, organised
- Music and voice, with their licences noted
- A spec sheet of what was delivered where
- Yours to re-cut later, with or without me
02 One film, start to finish
Leadflow: six jobs, one product, thirty seconds.thirty seconds.
Step 1 · The script
Five beats. Nothing else gets in.
Leadflow finds motivated sellers, scores them, and hands agents the leads with the numbers attached. Six features, one sentence each, would have been a brochure. The script keeps five beats and cuts everything that does not serve one of them.
- 01HookThe one line that stops the scroll.
- 02ProblemWhat it costs to do this the old way.
- 03ProductShow the thing doing the job. No adjectives.
- 04ProofA number, a name, a screen that is real.
- 05AskOne thing to do next, and only one.
Step 2 · The mark in motion
The logo moves first. Everything else follows its rules.
Before a single screen is animated, the mark gets its own build: how it enters, how it settles, how it leaves. That sets the timing and the easing for the whole piece, and it becomes the sting at the top and tail of every cut that comes after.
Step 3 · The explainer
Show the thing doing the job.
Real screens, real numbers, the product's own interface moving the way it moves. The design language is the brand's — same type, same colour, same illustration — so the video does not look like it came from a different company than the site it sits on.
Step 4 · Cut for every placement
One edit. A feed, a story, a billboard.
The same idea, recut rather than redrawn: a landscape master for the landing page, squares and stories for the feed, a silent version for autoplay, and a sizzle for the sales team. When the campaign went outdoors, the billboard came from the same files.
04 In their words
“Danny is a rock star. Always reliable and fast, but not at the expense of quality work. A true artist and master of his craft.”
“I could not be happier with the outcome. My website, logo and marketing ads are unique and appealing. He is now my go-to for anything design related!”
05 Motion questions
What people ask before they commit.commit.
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How long should an explainer be?
Shorter than you think. Thirty seconds is the honest length for a product explainer in a feed; sixty is the ceiling for a landing page where someone has chosen to watch. Anything longer is a demo, which is a different piece with a different job.
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Do we need a script first?
The script comes before anything visual, and it is the part most people skip. If you have one, we start there. If you do not, the first step of the project is writing it together, because a beautiful animation of the wrong sentence is still the wrong sentence.
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Can you animate the logo we already have?
Yes, and it is usually the first thing I do: a mark in motion sets the rules for how everything else moves. Spencer K. Prescott, Wide Eyes and Leadflow all have their logos built as loops and stings that get reused at the top and tail of every piece afterwards.
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What about voiceover and music?
Scoped per piece. Some explainers need a voice, some are stronger silent with captions, and every feed placement has to work with the sound off. Where the piece uses licensed music or a voice, the licence is noted in the hand-off so nothing has to be re-cleared later.
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Which placements do you deliver for?
Whatever the piece is going to run in, at that placement’s spec: feed squares, stories, landscape for YouTube and landing pages, and the odd billboard. Leadflow’s campaign and Spencer’s cover ad each came from one edit cut several ways rather than being redrawn per placement.
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How long does a video take, and what does it cost?
Both are scoped once we have talked: a logo sting and a sixty-second product explainer with voice are very different jobs. Before anything gets animated you will have a written scope, a fixed price and a timeline you can plan around.
06 Additional services
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Branding
Identity systems built to survive a printer, a sign shop and a decade.
Explore brandingExplore branding -
Web design
Sites that look like the brand and move someone a step closer to hiring you.
Explore web designExplore web design
07 Next step
Have a project in mind?mind?
Tell me what you're building and where it's getting stuck. I'll reply personally, usually within a day or two, with a straight answer on fit, timeline and budget.