In an attention-starved digital landscape, static brand identities simply don’t cut through any more. Whether it’s a micro-interaction on a mobile interface, a kinetic logo that breathes across social platforms, or a full-scale rebrand built on behavioural logic, motion has become fundamental to how audiences experience brands today.
Brand-building platform Frontify recently hosted a webinar exploring this game-changing shift, as part of its Rebranding Redefined series. The event brought together Mitch Paone, creative director at DIA, and Simon Chong, creative director at BUCK.
Read on as I share their best insights into practicalities, pitfalls and strategic thinking behind motion-first branding.
From decorative to strategic
We’ll start with the most important point first. The fundamental question isn’t whether brands need motion any more. It’s when motion stops being window dressing and becomes central to brand strategy.
“Motion becomes strategic, not decorative, when it defines how a brand behaves, not just how it looks,” Mitch explains. “This is what we call at DIA a kinetic identity, a system where motion expresses behaviour over form. When time itself shapes a brand’s logic, motion determines rhythm, structure and continuity at every touchpoint.”
This in itself isn’t new. Mitch traces the lineage back to broadcast design from the 1960s and 1970s, later reimagined during the MTV era. “The MTV idents were radical for treating the logo as a living, modular organism that constantly reinvented itself yet maintained coherence,” he notes.
For Simon, the shift happens when motion is considered from the outset. “Motion can do much more than ‘make things move’,” he says. “It stops being decorative when we start to consider it as a strategic object. At BUCK, our roots are in motion design, so we’re naturally incorporating motion throughout the process, especially in our upfront, exploratory phases, to inspire and unlock the brand identity system.”
Crucially, motion—with its inherent storytelling and emotional qualities—bridges the gap between abstract brand strategy and tangible creative expression more effectively than static design.
“One of the most difficult and rewarding challenges in brand identity work is translating strategy into creative expression,” Simon explains. “Motion is arguably a much more effective bridge because its inherent qualities—storytelling and emotion—mirror strategy’s intent to clarify and inspire.”
Building scalable motion systems
So how do you create motion that works across an entire ecosystem? “The key is to view motion as a behavioural system, not a set of animations,” Mitch insists. “Scalability emerges from building a structure that generates motion, one that encodes and organises behavioural principles at every level.”
By way of example, he points to DIA’s 2018 work with Squarespace, where motion, proportion, typography and structure were developed simultaneously. “Working with François Rappo on the Clarkson typeface, we embedded motion principles directly within the typography, with clear behavioural logic governing acceleration, rhythm and spatial relationships that scaled across applications ranging from advertising to user interfaces,” he recalls. Seven years later, the identity endures.
Simon takes a similar line. “Brand identities are typically made of the same core ingredients, including logo, colour, type and graphic language,” he says. “We should now consider motion as an integral ingredient in a brand’s toolkit, as essential as colour and type.”
Work by Buck for JP Morgan
A well-designed motion system also needs to live in a range of environments. “It should have enough flexibility to allow for various levels of expression, from quiet and subtle to fun and expressive,” explains Simon. “It should also be able to adapt to different contexts, creating a cohesive throughline across the brand, from useful product interactions to attention-grabbing out-of-home executions.”
Making the business case
So how do you sell these ideas to clients? Mitch reckons it requires reframing the conversation.
“I don’t really think of it as selling any more,” he says. “Motion isn’t optional; every brand today exists in motion by default. Whether it’s a website, a mobile app or an interface, time and behaviour are integral to how people experience identity. So the conversation isn’t ‘Do we need motion?’ It’s ‘What kind of motion defines us?'”
He warns that considering motion after a visual rebrand leads to inconsistency. “When motion is considered only after a visual rebrand, as with our projects for Mailchimp and Pinterest, it leads to inconsistency and compromises. The lesson is clear: for coherent, scalable motion, behavioural logic must be foundational, not retrofitted later.”
But where, specifically, is the value? Simon frames this around three pillars: consistency, efficiency and engagement.
Work by DIA for Mailchimp
On consistency: “Motion can help to elevate both the in-product experience and marketing executions, while providing a consistent throughline between the two.”
On efficiency: “By investing in motion design earlier in the process, they will have a more comprehensive brand system.”
On engagement: “As every brand lives through screens and digital applications, motion is an incredibly effective tool for both its ability to tell stories and evoke emotion.”
Common pitfalls
So that’s how to do it. But what about how not to do it? Mitch identifies one of the biggest pitfalls as “the ‘retrofit’ mindset: attempting to add motion to a process that wasn’t designed for it. It almost always results in something that feels disconnected. You can make it look good, but it won’t behave well.”
There’s also the issue of cultural disconnect. “Most studios are still split between branding and motion worlds, each with its own language,” Mitch observes. “Brand designers discuss grids, typography and identity manuals; motion designers think in sequences, storyboards and narrative storytelling.”
This can lead to deep misunderstanding. “I’ve heard so many times from designers that ‘This will look better in motion’,” says Simon. “Of course it will, but it’s not the role of motion or the motion designer to solve the design problem! We need to stop thinking of motion and design as separate disciplines at opposite ends of a timeline. They are much more interconnected and contingent than ever.”
Guidelines that work
A traditional brand guidelines document focuses on appearance. But motion guidelines are different. “They need to define specific behaviours,” Mitch says. “The question isn’t just ‘what moves’, but ‘how and why does it move?'”
At DIA, the focus is on documenting motion logic. “That includes principles like timing, rhythm, easing, acceleration and responsiveness. For example: ‘All transitions use 400ms ease-out for expansion, 300ms ease-in for contraction.’ This creates a breathing rhythm in which elements expand confidently and retract quickly. That simple rule, applied consistently, creates personality.”
Technical documentation, though, isn’t enough. “You need to define why something moves, not just how it moves,” Mitch insists. His solution is refreshingly practical: “Rather than saying a company is about ‘openness and empowerment’, we ask: Does your brand feel more like Paul Rudd or Brad Pitt? Los Angeles or New York City? These are concrete references everyone can grasp and translate into behaviour.”
Work by DIA for Squarespace
Equally important is delivery. “The era of PDF brand books should be long behind us,” Mitch argues. “What teams need now are living systems and toolkits, dynamic environments that can be activated without friction across design, product and marketing.”
To this end, Simon advocates for a cascading system. “At the top end is the brand strategy: what the design needs to consistently communicate overall. Below that are high-level design principles that inform the entire system. In the middle are guidelines and best-practice examples. And lastly, templates, toolkits and ongoing workshops.”
This recognises that practitioners have varying expertise. “More experienced designers might only need the high-level principles and examples. Less experienced people can use the templates and toolkits,” Simon explains.
Real-world examples
So what does all this look like in practice? Simon highlights two recent BUCK projects. Notion’s AI Assistant uses subtle character animation to make artificial intelligence feel natural. “With just eyes, brows and a nose, the team crafted playful behaviours that reimagine typical UI states—eyebrows that wave while thinking, a face that momentarily falls apart for errors and more.”
For JP Morgan Payments, meanwhile, motion was infused directly into the brand’s visual language. “Linework became our foundation; a dynamic system of straight lines, circles and squares that moves with intent, symbolising the seamless global connections Payments facilitates every day.”
All in all, this was a fascinating discussion, and here’s some great news. Frontify’s next episode in its Rebranding Redefined series, Culture is the new brand currency”, takes place on 2 December 2025 at 10am EST/3pm GMT. Sign up for free at frontify.com to continue exploring how modern brands are evolving beyond traditional identity systems.
