Cisco

Intent Based Networking

Animation Art Direction

A clean, elegant and type-forward approach to animation colors this overview video for Cisco's initiative to make network construction and administration grounded on intent.

A clean, offbeat and type-forward approach to animation colors this overview video for Cisco's initiative to make network construction and administration grounded on intent.

Simple Type & Color

Clean, calm, elegant and intentional—these concepts drove the design of this animation. Every element on screen had to justify itself, and extraneous visual fluff was stripped out and reined in. This was all meant to reflect the culling of overcomplexity that Cisco set out to acheive with IT networking. Simplicity, elegance, and above all, deliberate action as opposed to reactionary haphazardness.

It became clear that the best way to illustrate this was through small, purposeful animations anchored around key bits of copy. The type itself would drive visual transitions. Rather than introduce characters, icons, or additional visual noise, we would keep every graphic rooted in the text with purposeful bits of playful expression.

Early Styleframes

Initial designs were more literal and intense with the use of type as a graphic element. We explored some designs that played with the visual density of text to represent unwieldy code and potential points of failure. Working closely with Cisco's internal design group, we ultimately agreed that even this felt too "busy" for the overall tone of the video and we stripped it back to base shapes and playful visual abstractions.