Saleor Commerce - animations for e-commerce platform

The Mission

Saleor is the world’s fastest-growing open-source e-commerce platform. My mission was to help Mirumee Software with a launch of Saleor Commerce on Product Hunt, and with promotion on GraphQL Summit 2019 in San Francisco. The goal was to increase brand recognition and present a new group of products.

The Outcome

Since the worldwide launch on Product Hunt, Saleor brand For GraphQL Summit I prepared promotional animation to display on the exhibition booth. Dynamic, eye-catching video in the isometric perspective and with the new brand colors. For the launch on Product Hunt, I created an informative video showing how Saleor Commerce works from the backend.

The Impact

The Impact was a big interest in exhibit booth during the GraphQL Summit 2019. Since the worldwide launch on Product Hunt, Saleor brand recognition increased. Saleor Commerce received 300 upvotes. Significant increase in GitHub repo stargazer from 6300 to more than 8000.

Client

Mirumee Software

Services

Storyboard development
Motion Graphics
Hero image animation
SVG Animation

Software used

Figma
Illustrator
After Effects

Saleor reBranding

Saleor is an open-source e-commerce platform for building online stores. It’s written in Python and JavaScript on a Django framework, with a GraphQL API. The big launch on Product Hunt wasn’t only a chance to increase brand recognition but also to present the refreshed brand style guidelines.

My first project for Saleor was in late 2018. I had to prepare five animations for the home page—big pirate’s parrot for the Hero image and four for the other sections. The main challenge was to create animations for animated SVG files. Projects were exported to .json files and played on the website using the Lottie library.

Saleor Rebranding — Adobe Illustrator Project of icons to animate

The primary colors that appeared on the website were very dark blue and violet. The new release has brought a refreshed look. Heavy, dark shades have been replaced with light and pale tones. We had to communicate this change to current and new users.

Get a glimpse of how the hero section looked like:

GraphQL Summit 2019

Saleor Commerce became the Silver sponsor of the event GraphQL Summit 2019 (30-31 October) in San Francisco. Over 1,200 developers from all around the world attended this event. Saleor wanted to attract more attention to visitors and asked me to prepare the promotional animation to display on the exhibition booth. Together with Pawel Janczarek from Mirumee Software, responsible for graphic design, we created a dynamic video in an easily recognizable visual style.

Saleor Storyboard GraphQL — The first version of the storyboard

Isometric Problem

This new and fresh brand personality was a big problem in the process of animation creation. Saleor uses an isometric perspective in all their illustrations. We wanted to create a 3d environment in which the camera and components could move freely. Unfortunately, Adobe After Effects doesn’t have any built-in tools or Isometric View like in a Cinema4d.

Solution

I created homepage animations by changing the vertex points. Unfortunately, this technique was out of the question in such a big project. Also, we didn’t have time to recreate all graphics in 3d software. We need another solution. I did some research about camera lenses and tests with different settings in After Effects. And I found the answer of how to trick the software. By placing the camera incredibly far and at the same time setting zoom just as big, it was possible to flatten enough the 3d view to get rid of lens distortions. Skewing the camera by 45°, 35°, and 30° allows us to achieve the isometric look.

Isometric Settings After Effects — Settings in after effects

SHOT FROM THE ANIMATION

Product Hunt

After the GraphQL Summit the time has come for the Product Hunt launch. At this point, we focused on Python, Django, and GraphQL enthusiasts. We didn’t want to make just a beautiful looking video but explain how the Saleor Commerce works.

Several design iteration led us to a clean version of the animation about the personalized shopping experience. The big launch was a great success. Saleor Commerce received 300 upvotes on Product Hunt, and GitHub repo stargazer increased from 6300 to more than 8000.