Hook

YouTube Culture
&
Trends Report

Best Individual Editorial Feature - Ind/Brand/Org / Nominee

Hook

Best Individual Editorial Feature - Ind/Brand/Org

Nominee

The lines between creative disciplines continue to blur, as do our personal and work worlds. Our designers, engineers, and producers solve problems outside of their prototypical responsibilities, weaving in their own personal experiences. - Hook Team

Q: Can you describe your project and the concept behind it?

A: YouTube’s first ever Culture and Trends Report highlights notable 2020 trends on YouTube. Drawing inspiration from the platform, we set out to create a video-driven website where the web UI serves to encourage exploration. Combining research claims, data visualizations, and content creator interviews and clips, this curated experience centers around the YouTube player as a window into the year.

Q: What influenced your chosen technical approach, and how did it go beyond past methods?

A: In order to launch the site as closely as possible to the year end, we needed tools and a process that allowed designers and developers to work independently but in parallel on the production build. Ultimately, we developed a workflow passing between Procreate and Photoshop for the design assets, handing off to After Effects for the motion to be exported to a Lottie animation, and then dropping the Lottie container within the site architecture.

Q: What web technologies, tools, and resources did you use to develop this?

A: HTML5, Lottie, Anime, LIT, and Redux.

When did you experience a breakthrough or an "a-ha" moment during this project?

The site features a linear experience that is curated and narrated by the YouTube Trends & Culture team. We set out to control the user’s experience by encouraging people to view the report from beginning to end. We intentionally omitted a navigation menu for this purpose. Instead, we allow users to jump back to the beginning of the experience by clicking the logo, and we provide a pagination counter to show them where they are in the experience.

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Q: How did you balance your own creative ideas and technical capabilities with a fair representation of the client’s brand?

A: Like many projects these days, we had a very aggressive timeline. This required us to work in a highly coordinated way across the creative and production teams. Content, video production, design and engineering all had to move in sync with each other, and with the client. To ensure everyone was aligned, we had frequent and recurring video chats with key stakeholders scattered across the country.

Q: How did the final product meet or exceed your expectations?

A: We are proud of how the experience highlights a range of trends across regions and categories, in a completely new format. Our design approach in which the key art is decorated with doodles, provided a cohesive yet expressive personality, celebrating the creative spirit of these trends and cultural movements. The response from our client and audience of global influencers, advertisers and industry experts has been overwhelmingly positive.

Q: Why is this an exciting time to create new digital experiences? How does your team fit into this?

A: The world feels more accessible. Voices that had been left out of the conversation are now being amplified. Anyone with an internet connection can access movements originating in other countries. Meanwhile, the lines between creative disciplines continue to blur, as do our personal and work worlds. Our designers, engineers, and producers solve problems outside of their prototypical responsibilities, weaving in their own personal experiences.

YouTube Culture & Trends Report