Motion Design Study
A human hand in a world of tools.
A human touch for the tools a business runs on, and the work it took to make the motion feel real.
See the hero in motionThe candy that wouldn’t fall
A candy sat at the edge of the hand, hanging where it looked ready to fall. Another passed in front of the thumb when it belonged behind it.
Early versions had a deeper problem. The photographed pile stayed still while new animated candies fell around it, so the chain reaction never reached the original pieces. The scene kept improving, and these details kept breaking it. The fix was in what held the candies up and what happened when they touched.
A human touch for technical work
Big Freight Life helps businesses improve their work with software, AI and the tools they already pay for. The How It Works page needed to show the human side of that work, hence the hand. Each candy carries the logo of a tool used to automate part of a business. The hand stays still and the tools move. The person holds the scene together.
Motion design takes direction
This wasn’t a one-prompt design. Every version was watched in the browser, the bloopers caught and the work sent back. A still frame often showed what the moving scene hid.
Astra Medium helped implement the scene. The direction, the questions about behavior and the call on what needed another pass stayed human. That opens the door to more professional motion design across the site: timing, weight, depth and finish, each judged in the browser.
The original pieces had to move
The photographed pile gave way to individual three-dimensional candies over an edited, empty palm. The same piece can now rest, take a hit and tumble out. Rounded shells give the candies depth. Logos curve across both faces and turn with each piece. Small differences in size and finish keep any two from looking identical.
The candies also had to sit inside the photograph. A foreground layer keeps the thumb in front of the pieces behind it. Moving contact shadows replaced a dark patch that made the palm look stained.
Giving the drop weight
The first drop was two feet. The final one uses the real distance on screen, from the top edge to the hand. An assumed 20-centimeter hand sets the scale, Earth gravity sets the acceleration, and a manufacturer’s serving size gives an average candy mass of about one gram.
Each candy starts above the screen and accelerates into view. Impacts disturb the pile through contact. Pieces leaving the hand keep their momentum and continue accelerating downward.
Enough grip to rest, enough freedom to fall
Some edge pieces still looked stuck. The simulated palm reached too far forward and held up candies that looked ready to drop. Shortening that support and steepening its outer slope fixed the shape. Skin friction came down from 0.50 to 0.30, with 0.22 between candies.
In plain terms: a reshaped edge and a looser grip. The pile can rest, but a disturbed piece can slide and tumble away. The friction numbers have no units; they’re visual tuning, not measured properties of candy or skin. Gravity takes over when support runs out. No timer picks which candy falls.
Keeping the hand and pile together
Scrolling showed another flaw: the pile drifted out of step with the hand. Putting both on the same page coordinates keeps them together. The animation runs while the hand is on screen, pauses when it leaves and picks up the same pile when you come back. You can also pause it yourself.
The page opens on the animation’s own first frame, so the candies you see while it loads are the ones that start to move. Nothing swaps. If you prefer reduced motion, or the animation can’t load, that frame is the still you see.
What if the logos mean nothing?
If you know the logos, you may see a toolkit. If you don’t, you may see colorful candy. More logos can’t close that gap. The words on the page explain the offer: find the job worth fixing and build on the tools the business already uses. The image adds personality without carrying the whole explanation.
The real test is asking business owners what the image says to them, before anyone explains it. Their answer will show whether the hand and the tools say what they’re meant to.
What the work shows so far
In one five-drop test, 30 original pieces moved and four spilled. Other checks covered gravity, edge support, the pause control and motion preferences. They show the simulation follows its rules. They don’t show whether people understand the image, or whether it helps the business. Next: longer viewing, more screen sizes and asking owners what they see. The hand has to say more than “we can animate candy.”
Want this kind of care on your back office?
The same rules apply to your setup: AI prepares the work, and you decide what counts.