Category: Animation & Motion Design

Winterreden

Anim­ated Storytelling for a Cul­tur­al Series in Zurich. Every Janu­ary, when the Gross­mün­ster bells ring out at 6pm, some­thing spe­cial hap­pens: a voice from the worlds of sci­ence, cul­ture, or soci­ety appears in the ori­el win­dow of Karl der Grosse, speak­ing to the crowd below on Gross­mün­ster­platz. In 2019, the organ­izers brought these “Win­terre­den” into the digit­al space with a focused Ins­tagram cam­paign.

I was invited to cre­ate a 34-second anim­a­tion to intro­duce the evening’s program—from the live speech to the inform­al get-togeth­er after­ward. My goal was to tell this story in a way that felt enga­ging and access­ible, espe­cially to a young­er audi­ence. Using min­im­al words and a strong visu­al nar­rat­ive, the anim­a­tion cap­tures the unique energy of the event.

The illus­tra­tions were cre­ated by Tanja Di Maria, whose warm, express­ive style gave the film its dis­tinct­ive char­ac­ter. It was a great col­lab­or­a­tion and a lovely example of how graph­ic design, anim­a­tion, and cul­tur­al storytelling can come togeth­er to sup­port aes­thet­ic brand devel­op­ment and con­nect communities—offline and online.

Dog Reality

A Per­son­al Short Film Com­bin­ing Storytelling, Film­mak­ing & Anim­a­tion.

This short film fol­lows the quiet jour­ney of a dog named Nena through Zurich’s Wiedikon district—offering a gentle, four-legged per­spect­ive on the every­day life of a neigh­bor­hood. It’s a simple story, but one close to my heart. I developed the concept, wrote the script, cre­ated the story­board, filmed on loc­a­tion, and handled all post-pro­duc­tion. And yes—Nena is my dog.

The film was cre­ated as part of my dip­loma pro­ject for the Anim­a­tion pro­gram at EB Zurich. It gave me the chance to com­bine mul­tiple cre­at­ive disciplines—direction, cine­ma­to­graphy, edit­ing, and visu­al storytelling—into a single cohes­ive piece. The res­ult is a quiet but express­ive short film that invites view­ers to slow down and notice the details.

This pro­ject is a per­son­al reflec­tion of my pas­sion for mul­tidiscip­lin­ary design, where even small moments can be craf­ted with care and mean­ing.

Balkonia

Bring­ing City Rooftops to Life with Motion Design.
For sev­er­al years, Mig­ros Do it + Garden has sponsored the open-air Bloom cinema in the court­yard of the Swiss Nation­al Museum in Zurich. Before each screen­ing, a short spot is shown—tailored to the vibe of the sum­mer cinema exper­i­ence. In 2019, I was invited to con­cep­tu­al­ize and pro­duce a teas­er film on the theme of urb­an garden­ing.

The anim­a­tion is set on a Zurich rooftop, but its spir­it was inspired by a stay in Ber­lin, where I once had the chance to spend time on a lush, plant-filled ter­race. That memory shaped the visu­al tone of the film: relaxed, green, and slightly whim­sic­al. The spot fea­tures garden­ing products from Mig­ros, like a wooden raised bed, and small details bor­rowed from Berlin—such as a red rub­ber boot with white polka dots, repur­posed as a plant pot.

The res­ult was a play­ful, col­or­ful piece that res­on­ated with audi­ences and matched the sum­mer cinema mood per­fectly. It was so well received that Mig­ros chose to reuse the anim­a­tion again the fol­low­ing year.

This pro­ject reflects how motion design, graph­ic storytelling, and product-focused brand­ing con­sultancy ser­vices can cre­ate emo­tion­al connections—even in just a few seconds of screen time.

Happy Nuts

Explain­ing Fair Trade with Storytelling & Motion Design.

Pakka’s work spans the entire value chain—from organ­ic nut farm­ing by small­hold­er farm­ers in ori­gin coun­tries to premi­um dis­tri­bu­tion in European mar­kets. As mean­ing­ful as their mis­sion is, it’s also com­plex. My task was to cre­ate an anim­ated explain­er film that com­mu­nic­ates what Pakka does—faster, clear­er, and far more enga­ging than any Power­Point could.

The concept I developed high­lights the con­trast between indus­tri­al nut pro­duc­tion and Pakka’s Fair Trade mod­el. Through a light, illus­trat­ive anim­a­tion style and access­ible storytelling, the film breaks down a soph­ist­ic­ated top­ic into some­thing that’s easy to understand—and easy to care about.

The anim­a­tion was used across mul­tiple chan­nels: on Pakka’s web­site, in social media cam­paigns, and dur­ing present­a­tions to poten­tial cli­ents. It’s a great example of how motion design, graph­ic storytelling, and brand­ing con­sultancy ser­vices can work togeth­er to build emo­tion­al res­on­ance and brand trust.

Juggling ensemble

3D Anim­a­tion & Data Visu­al­iz­a­tion for Dynam­ic Sys­tems Research.

Between 2009 and 2015, the Insti­tute for Dynam­ic Sys­tems and Con­trol at ETH Zurich developed robots that can juggle balls—without cam­er­as, micro­phones, or tra­di­tion­al sensors. The pro­ject served a deep­er research pur­pose: to val­id­ate algorithms and tools used to con­trol dynam­ic sys­tems.

I was brought in to visu­al­ize what hap­pens when 32 of these robots juggle sim­ul­tan­eously. Using motion-cap­ture data from a single exist­ing robot, I built a 3D anim­a­tion where each vir­tu­al robot was indi­vidu­ally driv­en by real recor­ded motion data. The res­ult is a highly syn­chron­ized, almost hyp­not­ic sim­u­la­tion that makes a com­plex tech­nic­al sys­tem both under­stand­able and visu­ally com­pel­ling.

To add depth and real­ism, I also recor­ded the ori­gin­al robot’s mech­an­ic­al sounds and cre­ated a cus­tom audio sample track, syncing it to the anim­a­tion to enhance the immers­ive effect.

This pro­ject blends data-driv­en anim­a­tion, sci­entif­ic visu­al­iz­a­tion, and sound design—an example of how mul­tidiscip­lin­ary design can sup­port research com­mu­nic­a­tion in cre­at­ive, enga­ging ways.

Distributed Flight Array

3D Anim­a­tion for Mod­u­lar Fly­ing Robots Research.

At the Insti­tute for Dynam­ic Sys­tems and Con­trol at ETH Zurich, research­ers have been explor­ing a futur­ist­ic concept since 2008: mod­u­lar fly­ing robots that can autonom­ously coordin­ate, dock with each oth­er mid-ground, and fly togeth­er as a single aer­i­al plat­form. Once air­borne, these units hov­er for sev­er­al minutes before des­cend­ing back to the ground—a grace­ful demon­stra­tion of advanced robot­ics and con­trol sys­tems.

To com­mu­nic­ate this com­plex research in a com­pel­ling way, I cre­ated a concept anim­a­tion that visu­al­izes how these indi­vidu­al fly­ing mod­ules work in sync. Each unit was anim­ated using motion cap­ture data, ensur­ing a real­ist­ic and tech­nic­ally accur­ate por­tray­al of the system’s beha­vi­or. Through dynam­ic cam­era move­ments and 3D com­pos­i­tion, the anim­a­tion cap­tures the eleg­ance and innov­a­tion of the pro­ject while mak­ing its abstract mech­an­ics visu­ally intu­it­ive.

This is a great example of how anim­a­tion, data-driv­en visu­al­iz­a­tion, and mul­tidiscip­lin­ary design for aca­dem­ic audi­ences can bring com­plex tech­no­lo­gies to life in a way that’s clear, enga­ging, and mem­or­able.