Hummey is a fictional honey brand created in collaboration with a designer, exploring a warm, playful and organic visual identity.

My role was to bring the brand to life through motion, taking the existing identity and developing a range of animated and interactive assets. Across hand-drawn animation, social content, interactive branding and product-focused motion, I explored how movement could add personality and depth to the brand.

The project allowed me to experiment with different approaches to motion while keeping a consistent visual language, from tactile frame-by-frame animation to interactive digital experiences and composited product visuals.

Credits Brand Design: Woo Designs Motion Design: Alex Smith (Me!)

I explored a range of approaches to bring the Hummey identity beyond the static designs. I started with a hand-drawn, frame-by-frame cel animation of the logo, using the imperfections and tactile quality of the technique to reinforce the brand’s natural, handcrafted character. I then developed three animated Instagram Stories, adapting the visual identity into short-form social content with a playful and engaging rhythm. To explore a more interactive direction, I created a responsive version of the logo in Rive, allowing the identity to react to user interaction rather than simply playing as a fixed animation. Finally, I created a product-focused piece by compositing animation directly onto a honey jar, combining the moving elements with Hummey’s label and wider brand assets. Together, these pieces allowed me to explore how motion could give the brand a more expressive and tangible presence across different formats, from social content and interactive experiences to physical product.

For the character and logo animation, I used Duik Angela and Joysticks ’n Sliders to build flexible rigs and create expressive animation controls. These tools allowed me to work procedurally with the artwork, making it easier to experiment with movement and quickly iterate on different animation states.

I also made use of Essential Graphics to build controls outside of the source compositions. This allowed me to expose animation states and keyframes at a higher level, making the final animations easier to manage and adjust without needing to continually work inside the original compositions.

For the interactive logo, I used Rive’s rigging and state-based animation tools to create a more responsive version of the Hummey identity. I used the bone system to animate the flower stem, while joysticks gave me control over the bee and different flower states.

I then used a ViewModel to connect these elements and create the interactive behaviour, allowing the different animation states to respond dynamically to user input. This gave the identity a more playful and reactive quality while keeping the animation system flexible and easy to control.