Uber Motion Guidelines

01. Shortcomings of the brand guideline
Uber has a comprehensive brand guide, however there was very little information for how motion graphics and video should look like for Uber. There was a lot of work being done by external parties and within the Uber team itself. Everyone had varying degrees of interpretation on how to use the guideline and it resulted in videos that looked disparate from campaign to campaign.
02. How Uber Moves
Uber is a brand that is about moving people forward and I wanted the motion design to reflect that. I took a lot of motion reference from how the app works, as well as leveraging on the current brand equity to create this motion guideline.
At its core, the motion is simple and smooth. Animation is always moving from left to right, giving a sense of progress. The speed of the animation is loosely based on the animation that is found within the app, so there is that sense of familiarity when watching an Uber ad on YouTube to using the app.
For this motion guideline, we will be focusing on 3 elements: colour, logo and type.
03. Wordmark
The Uber wordmark animation is quick and simple. Being quick allows me to be able to squeeze it at the end of a 6 second YouTube ad. However when using the wordmark as an overlay for video, legibility quickly becomes an issue. In order to simplify things, the guideline will discourage using the wordmark as a video overlay.
04. Logobit
The Uber logobit combines the wordmark and the bit. The bit is animated left to right, in line with the motion principle. In contrast to the wordmark, the logobit is the preferred solution as it works much better when placed over video.
05. Typography
Clan Pro for Uber is a typeface that Uber uses in all of its English speaking regions. Typography animation feels effortless and smooth, just like how every Uber ride should feel. As a rule of thumb, supers for video should be short and concise.
06. Foreign Language
In the Asia Pacific region, Uber is active in 15 countries, speaking 11 different languages. With that in mind, the same type animation is translated across all these languages, ensuring that no matter which country, the animation style remains consistent.
Combining Elements

Logo lockups
With the elements we established earlier, we can combine them into a lockup. A lockup consists of the logobit, tagline and badges from Google and Apple. These animated logo lockups often go in the front or back of a video to create brand recognition.
Animated lockups come in a variety of durations to complement the duration of the video. Short YouTube bumper ads require a quick lockup, while a feature length video can afford to have a full lockup. 
Guidelines for Elements Placement
Combining Tagline and Logobit in a Lockup
Logobit transforming into the Uber App Icon for visual recognition
Supers, Lower Thirds & Subtitles
Establishing basic guidelines for other on screen elements such supers, lower thirds and subtitles rounds up the motion guideline. All these guides are in place to ensure that the branding remains consistent without too many restrictions on creative direction such as colour grading, editing style etc.
Animated lower thirds using the Bit as a container.
Subtitles are in a larger size because most of Uber's content are on social channels such as Facebook and Instagram, where the bulk of the audience consumes content on mobile phones.

Other Projects

Back to Top