Case Study · Design Systems · Motion Design · 2020–Present
When EBS refreshed their brand, the new guidelines were built entirely around out-of-home advertising. There was no digital visual language. No templates, no motion principles, no defined way for the brand to show up on social media.
The marketing team was producing content but it looked inconsistent. Different people making different things with no shared system behind them. Each post took around two hours to produce and there was no way to scale.
My job was to create that digital language from scratch; to take the EBS letterforms, colour palette and photography direction and build a motion system that could live on Instagram, be used by a team of non-specialists, and still look like one coherent brand.
End-to-end design system ownership. Visual direction, motion design, template production, and handoff to an external agency and in-house marketing team.
A mix of in-house designers and external social media agencies producing content day-to-day without always having a designer available.
The existing brand guidelines were designed for print and out-of-home. There were no rules for how EBS should look or move on social media. Every post was being made from scratch, inconsistently, by different people.
Rather than designing individual posts, I created a reusable motion system rooted in the EBS letterforms and brand geometry. The goal was templates anyone could use; design decisions already made, brand already locked in.
Production time dropped from two hours per post to under 30 minutes. The system produced 200+ posts in its first six months. EBS won Best Instagram Brand at the Social Media Awards in 2021 and 2022.
The core visual idea came from the EBS letterforms themselves. The curves, the geometry, the weight of the letters, these became the raw material for the motion system. Circles, arcs, and sweeping lines were abstracted from the logo and turned into a flexible set of motion elements.
The photography direction was defined separately, giving the team clear rules on image style, cropping, and how to combine photography with the graphic layer.
50+ After Effects templates covering square, story, and landscape formats. Each one editable by a non-specialist in under 30 minutes.
Illustrator and Photoshop files for static posts, stories, and campaign graphics. Same visual language, no motion required.
The E, B, and S letterforms were broken into component curves and shapes, becoming the building blocks of the motion system.
Clear rules on image selection, colour treatment, and how photography sits within the graphic system.
A consistent approach to how text enters, holds, and exits across all video content.
Best Content Creation Studio
Social Media AwardsBest Content Creation Studio
Social Media AwardsBest Content Creation Studio
Social Media AwardsBest Multi-platform Campaign (In-house)
Social Media AwardsBest Instagram Brand
Social Media AwardsBest Instagram Brand
Social Media Awards"The brief was to make EBS feel alive online. The answer was already in the letterforms."Katie Flynn, Designer
Faster content production. From 2 hours to under 30 minutes per post.
Posts produced in the first six months using the system.
Award wins across five years. Best Instagram Brand 2021 and 2022.