Welcome To Spark.
In 2022, Charter Communications launched an internal social media platform for their employees. The site could be used to share compliments and praises, redeem points for prizes and overall just stay connected as a family. I was tasked with an announcement animation, guiding employees through the UI in an engaging way. The result was most viewed video within the company for the year. Wooh! Thanks fam. Welcome to Spark.
We hate it. What is this?
I was really jonesed to share my initial few-second concept animatic with the client. The design minimalized the website and planned to use 2D joysticks n’ sliders rigs I’d been working on for the avatars to bring a fun human element into the UI. “This doesn’t look like the website at all…” And they were correct. As a step-by-step guide this might have been less helpful, even if the version in my head seemed like a design-centric ride. So it was back to doing what I feared and screenshotting the website and hacking and rigging into hundreds of layers, with stock-photo avatar replacements and using Illustrator to re-create elements that needed more resolution. “Can I personify a mouse cursor to guide your eye to each of the elements?” “No, I want it just the website scrolling and UI” “Good idea, I’ll have that Friday :)”
Version 1
Version 2 (with 100 Nicks)