RampUp 2023

Roles: 
Art director, visual designer, animator

Timeline:
7/2022-Present

Client:
LiveRamp 

Programs Used:
Figma, Adobe After Effects, Adobe Illustrator

RampUp is LiveRamp’s major marketing initiative; an event that boasts 1500+ attendees over two days, featuring 130+ speakers, networking booths, meals, parties and performances. The creative director and myself are responsible for the brand and execution of the design of the event.

    My two main challenges for RampUp were:
    • Streamling a design system that could make the brand scalable and expedite the asset-building process
    • Establish and implement an animation style that will be adaptable across multiple screens and platforms.

 

getting started

My first step was to create a style guide that established the look and feel of RampUp. This document was designed to share out externally with vendors and agencies and laid out guidelines for the design team to follow.

 
 
 
 
 

However, a style guide simply wasn’t enough. The design team would have to produce hundreds of assets, some changing daily and with a great deal of variables attached to them.

Since a large portion of design work was being done in Figma (creating a one-stop-shop for a lot of deliverables), I built a design system and component library that designers could pull from.

 
 
 
 
 

While working on the design system, I noticed one of the biggest RampUp challenges… designing for email.

Dozens of emails get sent out during RampUp, with quick turnarounds and tons of last minute changes. Each email traditionally required a wireframe and a design deliverable. I noticed that there was a disconnect between the wireframes and the copywriting…. copywriters didn’t know what to write for and wireframes created an additional level of work that wasn’t constructive.

As a solution, I built out a RampUp-specific email design system that could be used across the greater content team.

Copy writers could select, and write to, the module of their choice, and the designer can pull from pre-built components.

This ended up saving a great deal of time for both copy and design teams, helping copywriters understand more of the design process and how to write to character counts, while also ensuring designers were not doing back work in wireframes.

 
 
 
 

The copywriter writes to the email design system, and the designer drags in the module and plugs in the copy and images. Voila!

 
 
 

Animation at RampUp

As the resident animator at LiveRamp, I had to figure out how to adapt the brand style to work with animation.

Questions I considered before beginning:

  • How can I make something systemized, that’s easy to change, given the long list of speakers?
    (headshots, preferred job titles, etc)

  • How do I create a cohesive visual experience across standard and unconventional dimensional formats?

 
 
 
 

Beginning with speaker card videos for social, I developed an animation system that was built on a combination of bold color-blocking and pushing/pulling linework, a nod to the LiveRamp brand.

 
 
 

Once I had established the animation style with the speaker card, I worked with the event-planning agency’s video production team to create design elements for the main stage.

Using 3D renderings, I mocked up stage projections and built out an animation storyboard.

Things I had to consider:

  • Space between screens… how do I make this feel like an immersive experience, but work around layout parameters?

  • How does this layout work with 1, 2, 3, 4… even 6 speakers?

 
 
 
 

Final main stage animation:

 
 
 

Other animations to complete the RampUp motion experience:

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Photos by Nick Otto Photography

 

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