Celebrating small businesses.
Xero improves creative storytelling with smooth collaboration and sharing of motion graphics with Adobe.
1,636
Design projects completed in a year with smooth collaboration and efficient planning
Objectives
Incorporate beautiful designs into marketing, support, and UI for small businesses and financial partners worldwide
Deliver more dynamic media to effectively communicate messages with a growing global customer base
Collaborate with design, marketing, events, and other teams globally
Streamline time to deliver new content so designers can focus on creativity and storytelling
Results
1,000 custom illustrated elements shared in libraries with more than 100 designers for greater brand consistency
1,636 projects completed in a year due to improved productivity and efficiency
Created a single location for all stakeholders to find motion graphics from pre-production to final asset delivery
25% project planning time saved with automated project outlines
Nadim Malvat is a designer who believes that authentic storytelling and designs can foster human connections. He also believes that these connections are important for any industry, including in his work as the Head of Motion Graphics at Xero, an online accounting platform. Malvat’s commitment to design has helped Xero grow its reach and maintain loyalty with its 3.7 million subscribers in 180 countries.
“Xero celebrates millions of small businesses by helping them connect with their accountants and financial partners to work smarter,” says Malvat. “Part of that means doing whatever we can to make life better for our customers, from making sure the platform is enjoyable to use, to delivering campaigns, training, and support that makes people smile.”
Malvat and his global team of motion graphics operate as part of the Hub, Xero’s in-house creative agency. The agency creates content used across the company: website graphics, marketing campaigns, social media content, events, product tutorials, and software interfaces.
Xero’s branded content captures the company’s positive and supportive energy with minimalistic illustrations and animation that feature bold colors and dynamic movement. Maintaining a clear and consistent branding philosophy across all customer touchpoints is important for both Malvat and Xero.
“Rather than limiting creative possibilities, a strong focus on consistency can help us maximize the utility of our assets, allowing designers to prioritize messaging and storytelling,” says Malvat. “We use Adobe Creative Cloud for all of our designs, and with apps like Frame.io, Workfront, and Creative Cloud Libraries, we can share and collaborate more easily to let our creativity shine.”
“By encouraging designers to reuse content from existing libraries, we maintain brand consistency while focusing our energy on telling the best stories for our customers through marketing, support, and UI.”
Nadim Malvat
Head of Motion Graphics, Xero
Improving creativity with libraries
Xero has a library of close to 1,000 custom illustrated elements. Malvat and his team create and maintain these illustrated assets and motion graphics, such as lower thirds, end frames, and titles, as motion graphics templates using Adobe After Effects. The templates can easily be incorporated into any video or animated sequence, and any editor can easily customize the template by changing the text without motion graphics artists needing to create new graphics for every usage.
All motion graphics are then shared through Frame.io. The video collaboration solution and Creative Cloud Libraries provides a single, organized location where Xero’s more than 100 designers from various global teams can access all approved motion graphics. Malvat includes video style guides that show how the graphics should appear in motion for different aspect ratios and types of videos. This reduces miscommunications and improves brand consistency by helping designers, whether working for internal teams or external agencies, grab just the right graphic or template for any situation.
Motion graphics are also shared alongside all other brand elements using Creative Cloud Libraries. This includes static illustrations and graphics, logos, photographs, and other elements created using Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, and InDesign. With all elements in one location, designers can quickly find and reuse elements across websites, email campaigns, social media, and digital advertisements. Designers also incorporate elements into hype videos and video case studies created using Premiere Pro, Audition, and Lightroom.
“The Hub completed 1,636 projects last year, but that number will continue to grow as Xero grows,” says Malvat. “By encouraging designers to reuse content from existing libraries, we maintain brand consistency while focusing our energy on telling the best stories for our customers through marketing, support, and UI.”
“Everything we do — storyboards, animatics, working files, and finals — we put it in Frame.io. It creates a single source of truth where we can see a history of every version and every comment throughout the creative journey.”
Nadim Malvat
Head of Motion Graphics, Xero
Smooth collaboration with global teams
Creative teams use Frame.io as their main collaboration and review tool for all video, animation, and motion graphics jobs at Xero. Requests for all new content start in Workfront. The work management app creates a new project, saving 25% of project planning time by automatically outlining all steps, resources, and people who will be involved in the project. The app also provides visibility into assignments, allowing managers to triage and prioritize projects to better meet company needs.
When dealing with motion graphics, the project doesn’t truly start until a corresponding folder is created in Frame.io. “Everything we do — storyboards, animatics, working files, and finals — we put it in Frame.io,” says Malvat. “It creates a single source of truth where we can see a history of every version and every comment throughout the creative journey.”
Marketing, events, external suppliers, and other teams working globally can easily find files and notes in a single location. Stakeholders don’t need creative training to quickly learn to add feedback to files. They can draw on the frame — circling points to adjust, drawing arrows to indicate suggested changes in movement, or even redrawing a graphical element — to make the conversation more precise and reduce miscommunications while discussing drafts.
“Frame.io is our key collaboration tool, simplifying reviews, feedback, and version control,” says Malvat. “With stakeholders and creatives scattered globally, Frame.io ensures that everyone can easily access and review project progress, making the whole process smooth and effective.”
“With solutions such as Frame.io, Workfront, and Libraries, we collaborate much more smoothly, which facilitates our goals to focus on the customer.”
Nadim Malvat
Head of Motion Graphics, Xero
Streamlining content creation
Malvat is always on the lookout for ways to bring animation and graphics into the hands of more content authors. He’s particularly excited about doing more with Adobe Express, as marketers and other content creators could potentially use templates and Libraries in the Cloud.
“The focus should always be on storytelling and telling the key message that we want to communicate,” says Malvat. “With solutions such as Frame.io, Workfront, and Libraries, we collaborate much more smoothly, which facilitates our goals to focus on the customer.”
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