AutoSpark: A Suite of Content Creation and Configuration Tools
- Project Overview: Improve efficiency of content creation across teams
- Case Detail #1: Passing customer brand information to completed assets
- Research
- Current state: art directors create palettes
- Study how color is used in manually-created asset libraries
- Study the feasibility of implementing brand color into templated content generated by automation
- Design: Palettes, tints & shades, webapp UI, editing
- Research
USER PERSONAS
Researcher/Writer
Motion Designer
Art Director
ABOUT THE COMPANY
GuideSpark is a B2B SaaS company in the EX space, providing custom and configured employee communications assets via an online platform paired with multi-channel campaign automation.
Challenge: High Volume, High Complexity
With a Content-as-a-Service model, GuideSpark had dozens of explainer videos in production each day.
Video production is time-consuming and expensive. Production times were ballooning.
With dozens of customers added monthly and average video libraries containing 6 videos each, the company was looking to increase output while maintaining content quality.
My team was tasked with finding ways to scale operations beyond just hiring more resources. We had previously created templated content organized within After Effects files, though production at scale required automation.
Approach: Focus on the Functions Most In Need
By analyzing video production times, I knew Motion Designers, more than any other function, needed help from automation. All automation, regardless of user, was to be in service of motion designers.
I worked with project managers to identify production issue trends. Interviews and ride-alongs with motion designers surfaced pain points and opportunities.
Solution: AutoSpark in 2 Parts
Webapp. Used by Art Directors and Researcher/Writers, the webapp walks the user through a series of form fields to customize the video’s content and branding. The end result is an After Effects file ready for a Motion Designer.
After Effects Extension. With the content selected and configured through the webapp, the After Effects extension turns After Effects into an in-house production workstation. Complex features like Voiceover Swapping, Brand Color Swapping, Character Animations, and Animation Timing were made available right inside After Effect’s UI.
With the addition of asset automation, the need for revisions dropped considerably. This is evidence that automation reduced both production time and content errors.
Project Notes
AutoSpark was originally an R&D project between myself and a technical architect. Within a month of our first tests, we presented the efficiency of our automation tools. Resources from Product, Engineering, and Delivery teams were organized to build and implement these tools.
- With many options considered, care was taken into designing how brand information was entered into the webapp and passed down into the video library.
