Interview about RingCentral - Message, Video, Phone. Motion Design, winner of the A' Movie, Video and Animation Design Award 2021
RingCentral is the #1 business communications platform, bringing everyone and everything together to get work done. NotReal developed an overview video to showcase everything this powerful app can do, so viewers can get a glimpse of how broad and complete this product really is. There's the coexistence of three worlds: Real, the user point showed through realistic work situations. Digital, conformed by deconstructed UIs that highlight specific features of the app. And Abstract, to describe general functionality. Throughout the video, there's a team creating a product through the app.
View detailed images, specifications, and award details on A' Design Award & Competition website.
View Design DetailsDeveloped in 2020, the visual concept behind RingCentral MVP emerged during a time of intense transformation in communication. We sought to represent the hybrid nature of digital interactions, where physical presence, digital interfaces, and abstract connections overlap. From the beginning, our team explored how to merge these worlds without overwhelming the viewer. Through realistic environments that mimicked home-office settings, we created a visual system that felt human yet universal. They worked as an abstract representation of personas and built a connection with the customers. Over time, this approach became a modular narrative structure that allowed us to revisit and scale the system. Even today, the project serves as a reference for merging form and function across multiple visual languages.
Created in response to the global shift to remote work in 2020, this project was as much about emotional context as it was about function. We aimed to capture the atmosphere of the time: Makeshift home offices, blurred personal boundaries, and an urgent need for connection. Hyper-realistic environments played a key role in grounding the experience. By placing our abstract, colorful elements in real-life domestic settings, we gave the viewer a sense of presence and relatability. The work stood out because it acknowledged the moment, and even years later it remains relevant as a visual document of a transitional era in communication. It has helped set a tone for many B2B motion projects that followed.
When digital fatigue was rapidly setting in, we saw an opportunity to rethink how complex software could be introduced visually. Rather than relying on static UI demos, we opted for metaphor and abstraction. Our team developed motion metaphors that translated communication features into simple, rhythmic forms. The animation system was designed for clarity and engagement, focusing on intuitive visuals instead of literal interpretation. That creative decision still informs how we approach feature-driven storytelling today. It demonstrated that design could be both explanatory and emotionally rich, especially when audiences are overwhelmed with information.
One of the most interesting aspects of the project was how the technical challenges we faced in 2020 paralleled the broader shift to remote work. Just as teams across the world were adapting to new hybrid workflows, we were balancing two distinct visual systems (realistic environments and abstract shape-based elements) within a fully remote production. Fortunately, our studio had been working in a distributed way even before the pandemic, so we already had experience building pipelines that prioritize modularity, clarity, and asynchronous collaboration. This foundation allowed us to quickly develop a unified visual language where shapes, lighting, and environments could coexist harmoniously. To maintain cohesion across scenes developed by different team members, our process relies heavily on collaboration: each scene is passed through multiple artists, and this helps unify the visual language and ensures consistency throughout the piece. The role of the creative directors is key to see the big picture and guide the team towards this purpose, as well as the project managers’, who streamline the process and connect all the parts. In retrospect, our preparedness for remote collaboration was a key enabler of the project’s visual harmony and production fluidity.
Storytelling was the key to standing out in a saturated B2B market. With RingCentral MVP, our narrative approach was anchored in three key pillars: the human aspect, represented by realistic environments; the product, represented by deconstructed UI elements; and the conceptual, represented through abstract shapes. This framework allowed us to craft a cohesive experience that felt both emotional and informative. We chose to place emotional clarity above product specificity. Each feature (messaging, video, phone) was translated into a motion-driven metaphor and woven into a fluid story arc. This made the video engaging while subtly informing the viewer. We leaned into rhythm, visual contrast, and transitions to guide attention and maintain momentum, this balance contributed to presenting RingCentral as a brand aligned with the realities of modern workflows. The project offered a valuable example of how complexity can be approached with clarity and care.
RingCentral needed to modernize its brand presence, and part of our visual strategy focused on grounding the digital product in a relatable, real-world context. In terms of lighting and materiality, we aimed for a realistic yet stylized approach, bringing softness, warmth, and cohesion across all the pieces. We used soft ambient lighting to create approachable and calm spaces, while saturated accent tones helped draw attention to key visual cues. Materials were matte, clean, and minimal, helping maintain coherence across the different environments and scenes. These choices helped RingCentral differentiate itself visually in a competitive space. We still reference this project when discussing high-end minimalism and emotional tone in brand storytelling.
As mentioned in Q4, our process is fundamentally collaborative and relies on a strong direction team to guide each phase. Alongside our creative directors and project management team, we rely on specialists in storytelling, design, and animation, ensuring that each part of the process is achieved by professionals who bring focused expertise to the table. Our model is reference-driven: We build visual and conceptual foundations early, and then refine through constant iteration. We communicate daily with each team member to review their tasks, whether it's briefing a new scene or providing feedback on a work in progress. Teams are split by discipline, especially between design and animation. We typically don't rely on generalists who do both, not only due to the specialization involved, but also because these phases often overlap. Having different people focused on each ensures continuity and allows the pipeline to move efficiently without bottlenecks. our studio continues to build on this collaborative framework. The RingCentral MVP project was not only creatively ambitious, but also proved how remote teams could achieve cohesion through shared vision and openness.
The visual storytelling was built around three worlds: the human, represented by realistic environments; the product, represented through deconstructed UIs; and the abstract, brought to life with geometric shapes. These layers worked together to express the full experience of using RingCentral MVP. At the heart of the story is a team collaborating to build something, a familiar situation for any modern workplace. This gave us a clear context for using the product. We showed ideas like connection and clarity through expressive visuals like threads weaving together, synchronized shapes, and smooth transitions. This avoided literal walkthroughs and kept the story simple and human.We aimed to make abstract features as switching seamlessly between messaging, video, and phone, feel natural and human. To do this, we used intuitive visual cues that suggested fluidity and collaboration. The result was a system that explained the product’s value clearly, without overwhelming the viewer.To help bridge the abstract and the concrete, we gradually introduced elements of the real product UI into the composition. These moments of clarity allowed us to shift from conceptual representations to recognizable interface components, reinforcing the product’s presence without relying entirely on literal depictions.
One of the key breakthroughs came from our collaboration with the client in defining the connections between product features, user behaviors, and the broader conceptual world we wanted to represent. Together, we found a narrative and visual anchor that allowed us to bridge the human, product, and abstract layers present in the project. This conceptual foundation guided all creative decisions. It provided clarity when developing transitions, deciding how to frame abstract functionality, and building consistency across scenes. By anchoring everything to that shared framework, we were able to build a coherent and expressive visual system that still serves as a reference for similar challenges.
Years after the project, remote work has become a standard part of most workflows, often blended with in-person collaboration in hybrid formats. This shift continues to shape how teams communicate and how products are developed. In the motion design industry, the digital nature of the work makes production more streamlined and flexible, and today we see the incorporation of AI tools becoming increasingly common across workflows and digital products.At the time, we didn’t fully realize we would be helping to decode or even contribute to building a new visual language around the world of tech companies, through the combination of deconstructed UIs, realistic environments, avatars that represent users, and motion-driven geometric elements as conceptual bridges.The visual language chosen to communicate a product still depends largely on each brand’s principles: its identity, audience, tone, and market positioning. But it also responds to the prevailing design trends of the time. Currently, we see a broad variety of styles and techniques coexisting, creating a diverse visual landscape. Projects like RingCentral MVP reflect that interplay between brand specificity and cultural context, and continue to inform how we think about clarity, emotion, and storytelling in B2B motion content.
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