Motion Array
Simplifying how video creators showcase their work.
Services
Design strategy
User research
Market research
Data analysis
Interaction design
Interface design
Design system
Deliverables
Design roadmap
Product spec
Product tracking plan
0 to 1 product development
Team involved
Rebecca Visser
Content Director
Cole Vineyard
VP of Marketing
Albert Cloete
Engineer
Louise Lista
Engineer
Lemuel Flores
Engineer
Introduction
If you’ve read my main Motion Array case study, you’ve likely read a bit about my tenure there. If not, I highly recommend it, but also, here is a brief overview. In 2018, I joined Motion Array, a platform for content creators, providing unlimited downloads of professional video assets.
Motion Array had their initial growth spur that slowed down in 2018 and they brought me in to help them understand what can be done to resume and surpass their initial trajectory. After doing a deep discovery or the product, the company and user challenges, we’ve made some adjustments to the product and the overall offering.
This included developing two new products that would be included on the subscription - The Review, and The Portfolio, which you’re going to read more about in this case study.
Uncovering the challenges
During the discovery phase that we conducted to uncover opportunities for growth of the platform, we found that due to the nature of the subscription, many users only activated their subscription when they needed to download assets. Given that the company only offered assets, users didn’t see the value in keeping the long term subscription.
While talking to our members, we learned that they are struggling when it comes to presenting their work to a broader audience. The existing tools were not really oriented to showcasing video, which often lead to different display issues and videos not being presented in the best possible way. The tools are also inflexible and many did not support basic requirements like varying aspect ratio for projects.
Users faced even greater challenges with custom portfolios. Many creators lack the design skills and tools needed to create a professional website. Similarly, the technical aspects of development are often out of reach, making building a custom site both difficult and costly.
The opportunity
Building on the success of The Review — our tool for gathering project feedback, which added significant value to our members' subscriptions, we saw an opportunity to expand even further. Our vision was to create an all-in-one platform for video creators that covers the entire workflow: from finding assets, to gathering feedback, and ultimately publishing their work.
This led to the creation of The Portfolio — a tool designed specifically for video professionals to easily create and publish custom portfolio websites, offering a seamless solution for showcasing their work.
The goal was to make the tool as simple as possible, with options for using pre-designed templates, and developing a fully customized design if you want to get creative.
The simplicity
The whole platform is based around the idea that creating a portfolio should be highly simplified and fast. The platform offers a variety of pre-built layouts and section variations for each of the pre-designed blocks that users can select and apply with just a click. This makes it easy for video creators, who may not have design expertise, to build a polished website without needing to start from scratch or worry about design details.
On the other hand, users can drag and drop different elements, such as videos, text blocks, or images into their preferred positions in the custom made sections. This visual approach eliminates the need for coding and simplifies complex design tasks, while still allowing advanced customization.
One additional focus was creating the perfect environment for video creators specifically, so they can express themselves and share their work on the best possible way.
The consistency
For video editors, ensuring that their visual content is perfectly presented is crucial. That’s why we introduced a few visual adjustment tools, offering controls for lighting, brightness, contrast, tone and HSL. These options allow video editors to fine-tune the appearance of their images or video thumbnails directly within the platform, without needing to switch between multiple editing tools.
This level of control is essential for video editors, who often need to ensure consistency in tone and color across their portfolios. Whether it’s adjusting the lighting to match a particular aesthetic or tweaking the saturation to make a shot more vibrant, these options give editors the ability to enhance their visuals and ensure their work stands out in any portfolio.
The showcase
We knew that many video editors wanted more than just a simple grid stack to show their work — they needed a unique way to showcase their projects and tell a visual story. To help our members do just that, we've created numerous custom grids to showcase projects in a more interactive and captivating way.
The balance
One of the key challenges for video editors is organizing visual content in a way that feels cohesive and professional. We introduced a simple grid control to allow layout structure adjustments, without overwhelming users with technical design details. By adjusting the number of columns and spacing with just a few clicks, editors can easily showcase their work in a clean, organized manner, ensuring that their videos and related content are presented with precision and clarity.
Extended support
The portfolio builder allows you to showcase your video projects with an embedded, responsive video player that gives users full control. With features like playback speed adjustment, lighting control, and seamless full-screen transitions, videographers can ensure their work is experienced exactly as intended.
A lot of our users are also music and audio creators. That's why we've created a native music player. This tool enables viewers to engage both visually and sonically with your work, making it ideal for portfolios featuring music, voiceovers, or complex sound design.
In addition, we’ve introduced a soundtrack component you can choose to show, below the video, designed specifically to highlight the audio tracks used in a project. This feature is perfect for audio creators who want to showcase how their music or sound design contributes to the visual narrative.
Outcome
After releasing The Review we saw a boost in subscription length immediately, but after the release of The Portfolio, this trend multiplied and we saw significantly higher subscription lifetime increase and the churn going down. In addition to that, we saw an increase in new members, with people outside of the video production creating their portfolio through Motion Array.
Eventually, this product together with the other initiatives we brought to life helped us achieve 185% growth year over year and the marketplace grew to 600k products and over 9m users.
The subscription offered a significantly better long term value, extending subscription length by 16x and drastically reducing churn.
During my second year at Motion Array, we've achieved and exceeded the goals we set and the company was acquired by Artlist for $65M.
