LottieFiles Motion Systems
Created a central place for teams to define, manage, publish, and version their motion standards
- Responsibility
- Product design ownership
- Area
- Platform
- Product reach
- Creator and Plugins
Impact
Established a governed motion system across Platform, Creator, Figma, and After Effects, bringing motion standards into the tools where teams work
- ~600
- Team and Enterprise users around launch
- 16%
- monthly open-to-create rate
Building on an initial proof of concept, I led the UX and UI for Motion Systems within LottieFiles Platform. I developed the end-to-end experience, from setup and brand guide import to managing principles, tokens, easing curves, presets, and approved assets, with support for drafting, publishing, and versioning systems. The initial values and structure were shaped with LottieFiles’ internal Motion Design team to keep the system useful without becoming overly complex. I also contributed directly to front-end implementation within Platform.
Platform served as the source of truth, while Lottie Creator and the Figma and After Effects plugins consumed published standards and made approved tokens, easing curves, presets, and assets available where teams created motion.
I set the direction for Motion Systems in Lottie Creator, working closely with the Creator designer and engineers to translate the Platform model into the creation workflow. I also reviewed the Figma and After Effects plugin experiences, providing feedback to keep their implementations aligned with the core model. Throughout the coordinated release, I conducted design QA to maintain consistency and quality through implementation. The release also received positive feedback from external users.
Why it mattered
Teams were managing motion standards through incomplete or disconnected systems, leaving them without a reliable way to define, govern, and reuse motion consistently.
Key decision
Created one consistent structure for building and governing Motion Systems in Platform, then extended published standards into Creator and the plugins.
Outcome
Motion Systems launched to Team and Enterprise customers as a coordinated experience across Platform, Creator, Figma, and After Effects, giving teams a consistent way to define, publish, and reuse motion standards.
Created a shared home for defining and governing motion standards
Brought reusable foundations, presets, and animated assets into one system
Made published Motion Systems accessible through a dedicated link
Helped align the Motion Systems UX in the Figma plugin.
What scaled
The model established in Platform became the foundation for governing Motion Systems across the wider LottieFiles ecosystem, giving teams a consistent way to apply standards across creative workflows. It also helped kickstart broader governance initiatives within the Platform team.
“Niklas is the kind of product designer engineers actually enjoy working with. His craft is excellent. Clean, thoughtful work with the details already resolved before it reaches a build. He was present during implementation, precise about what mattered and what did not, and always willing to adjust when there was a good technical reason to.
Strong designer, even better teammate. I would work with him again without hesitation.”
Ahmed AliEngineering Manager at LottieFiles
“He worked closely with designers across teams to ensure these experiences were cohesive across Platform, Creator, plugins, and the wider LottieFiles ecosystem.
His comfort navigating large codebases created a strong partnership with developers and allowed him to move seamlessly between design and implementation.”
Inad HussainDesign Lead at LottieFiles
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