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Hey there! I’m Zoë (she/her) and I’m a Senior Motion Designer here at M+R.
During my first year here, I’ve gotten a chance to work on a bunch of cool and important projects – ranging from large Connected Television (CTV) spots to social media ads to email graphics.
I’d love to break down a few of my favorite projects to-date, and tell you a little bit about why animation might be impactful for your next campaign!
First up: NWLC Caregiving CTV [https://youtu.be/39sinUIhwNM]
For National Women’s Law Center, the team and I wanted to create a CTV spot that recognized care workers for their immense impact on the lives they touched, while also discussing how Congress has failed care workers. Our goals were to get our audience to invest in care workers by adding their name to the list and/or donating.
I wanted to portray caregivers in a way that felt real and genuine, without exploiting vulnerable patients. Of course, stock footage is always an option — but often, stock footage lacks the authenticity needed to connect with audiences and move them to action.
Instead, I decided to animate these care workers using a hand-drawn, frame-by-frame style. This adds a human touch — literally every line was carefully done by hand for each frame. The animation itself is gentle and soft, reflecting the close personal relationships between caregivers and their patients.
Next: the empowering SEIU Michigan video [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDF873qJt84]
This SEIU Michigan animation was created for YouTube, Connected TV, and social media channels to rally folks to repeal the state’s abusive preemption law passed by Republicans in 2015.
Similar to the NWLC video, I wanted to forgo stock images here to highlight the folks out there showing up for their communities and protesting. I wanted to leverage an emotional connection for our audience that stock images wouldn’t be able to recreate by using photos of people actually rallying for better policies. This is not to hate on stock images at all — there is a time and place where stock works and is effective. But when it comes to getting folks to come together on an issue, it helps to show the courageous actual people who are already thinking about that issue — and acting on it!
By using motion graphics and called-out text-on-screen, I was able to pinpoint phrases that empowered our audience: “Return power to our communities!”
And lastly, the half-tone dream: Planned Parenthood’s Bright & Bold CTV. [https://youtu.be/x9iI35of0BE]
For Planned Parenthood, we wanted to create a CTV spot centered around health care that was empowering and inspiring.
In contrast to the above examples, I leveraged stock footage here as I was looking for images that were more general instead of personalized. Despite the script saying “Our own lives, our own needs, our own health care,” I wanted people to feel as though they could put themselves into those statements, and stock was great for this use case.
For the design, I paired Planned Parenthood’s bold, bright colors with gorgeous halftone textures in order to add dimension and layering to the video.
To wrap it up
Through each approach: the soft tender NWLC hand-drawn animation; the bold, powerful SEIU collage spot; and the textured, saturated Planned Parenthood piece; we were able to craft compelling stories in order to spur our audience to take action.
The joy of being a motion designer here at M+R is to be able to create custom animations tailored to each of our wonderful and important nonprofit clients. What could be better than collaborating with smart, talented colleagues to develop meaningful creative that motivates people to change the world?
If that sounds like the kind of work you’d like to be doing, check out our open job listings here.
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M+R takes creative pretty seriously! Whether it’s our over-the-top approach to our annual Benchmarks Study, our Guide to Effective and Ethical Creative, or the many, many campaign concepts, ads, videos, messages and other creative projects we produce for our clients every day, our 20 full-time creative staff members give it their all. Do you have a project you’d like to discuss? Reach out to Senior Creative Directors Will Valverde or Gwen McGarry!
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Zoë Soriano is a Senior Motion Designer at M+R based in Washington, DC. When she’s not animating campaigns, you can find her at the local bookstore scouring the shelves for her next fantasy fix.