Creating and implementing motion brand guidelines elevated the design quality, efficiency, and consistency of Toast’s brand presence across all platforms.

Objective

To bring Toast's brand to life cohesively across all platforms, I led a strategic initiative to develop comprehensive motion brand guidelines that unified our visual identity. Previously, inconsistencies in animation styles across video, social media, web, presentations, employer branding, product, and more diluted the brand's impact in both employer branding and marketing materials. Starting from scratch, I focused on identifying high-use, high-impact scenarios where motion could most effectively enhance our brand story.

Results

The project began by establishing core principles of motion design, which guided the creation of clear, easy-to-implement guidelines. This included reusable templates, standardized easing curves, and a library of ready-to-use assets for social ads, web, and presentations. These principles formed the foundation for a cohesive brand story that extended across all visual outputs.

The educational guidelines were central to the initiative, but we also developed .MOGRT and After Effects templates to support rapid content creation. These user-friendly templates enabled the internal team to quickly update materials and allowed agencies and contractors to produce content more efficiently by leveraging these pre-built assets.

A standout component of this initiative was the creation of an animated version of the Toast logo, designed to capture the brand's essence while aligning with our visual identity. Careful consideration of speed and flow resulted in a final animation that is now widely used across nearly all company assets, reinforcing brand consistency and visual cohesion.

Guidelines were shared with all teams creating Toast content, including marketing, agencies, employer brand, product and more.