LottieFiles Evangelist

Will Brett-Atkin Lottie Files Evangelist

I’ve joined the LottieFiles Evangelist program

March 26 2022 – Today is the day that LottieFiles officially announce that I have joined their exclusive LottieFiles Evangelist program. A group of designers, developers, and creators that have been recognised by LottieFiles for their expertise in using Lotties in their work.

After many years of using Lotties in both my personal and professional design work, I am really excited to have been recruited and accepted into the program by LottieFiles.

What is Lottie?

A Lottie is a JSON-based animation file format that enables designers to ship animations on any platform as easily as shipping static assets. They are small files that work on any device and can scale up or down without pixelation.

How can I use a Lottie?

It’s easier than you think, with LottieFiles you can import and preview your Lottie animation and it will generate the lines of code that you can use to implement your animations in your projects. Alternatively, you can also download Lottie animations from our community and marketplace.

Where can I use a Lottie?

You can use Lotties on basically any platform: web or mobile. This means you can integrate them seamlessly into both apps and web pages. Lottie animations can even be used as stickers on messaging platforms. It isn’t technically limited to web and mobile. You could use it on desktop apps as well as some watches

What can a Lottie do?

A Lottie animation can play your animation on web or mobile devices while still maintaining a nice high quality. It can also have smart settings that can allow for your animation to be interactive.

How big is a Lottie?

Let’s break it down into an easily visualized representation. If a PNG is a T-Rex, and a GIF is an elephant, then a Lottie is a puppy.

The size of a Lottie file significantly increases download speed and reduces the amount of disk space utilised.

What is LottieFiles?

LottieFiles is a platform for testing, collaborating and discovering animations mainly catering to a community of animators, designers, developers and engineers (but we don’t discriminate so everyone is welcome!).

The platform offers a range of tools and features that aim to make the discovery, creation, and implementation of Lottie animations easier and more efficient. It is also the creator of the LottieFiles plugin for After Effects which among other features also helps convert your animation file into a Lottie file.

What is the difference between Lottie and LottieFiles?

Lottie refers to the animation file and LottieFiles is the platform on which you can test and share Lottie animations.

Is LottieFiles by Airbnb?

No, LottieFiles is independent of Airbnb but what we created here at LottieFiles is run on libraries created by developers who at the time of creation worked at Airbnb. Meet the team behind LottieFiles here.

What is a LottieFiles Evangelist?

So what is a LottieFiles Evangelist exactly? It’s a person that has been officially recognised by LottieFiles as an expert in using Lotties whether in design, code or animation/motion design. The LottieFiles Evangelist program is not open to the public. You can only become an evangelist if LottieFiles ask you to join and you can prove your expertise. This is so that they have faith that their evangelists are indeed experts, have a body of work to prove it and are also able to spread the word about using Lotties in products.

Evangelists are expected to share content around LottieFiles. Whether in the form of tutorials, case studies, workshops or through presentations. I intend to do all of the above starting with this article.

I am in a particularly good position here as my current role is in designing events and live streaming software as a service. StreamYard is the perfect platform to share tutorials and present my content, so please do keep an eye out for upcoming live streams which I will announce on my YouTube and social media channels.

As well as public-facing content I will also be running private workshops for businesses and corporates. My first private workshop is due to go ahead this week. Exciting times indeed!

Examples of my Lotties

I have created 100’s of Lottie animations over the past few years and many have been used in the products I’ve designed whilst working for some of the world’s biggest brands. Here are a small selection of Lottie examples:

My website header

This simple animation was created in Figma and After Effects and then saved as a Lottie. I am using it for my homepage header on this website. You can check it out here: https://willbrettdesign.co.uk

Password screen

This animation was created for a password screen to give the user context as to a wrong password entry.

Email motion graphic

A simple email motion graphic to prompt a user to check their email.

Gift Animation

This gift animation was one of the first animations I created using Lottie back in 2017. I actually created this animation even earlier before I even knew about Lottie’s. The animation was created in After Effects and either rendered as a GIF or a video. But as soon as learned about Lottie it was the obvious choice and I’ve been using Lottie to display motion graphics and animations in my App, Web, and Digital Product Designs ever since.

Face ID and Touch ID

One of my favorite public animations to date. Again this was made back in 2017 for a project that was never used. A simple animation to show FaceID and TouchID. This was when we were adding extra security into an app and wanted a nice animation for the onboarding process.

What’s next?

So what’s next now that I’ve joined the LottieFiles evangelist program? Well, loads of stuff! I will be continuing to use Lottie as I have been, creating animations and motion graphics in my Digital Product Design work both in my personal and professional work. But, on top of that, I will also be creating tutorials on my YouTube Channel, case studies, and articles on my website and Medium pages as well as sharing on social media. I also plan to start presenting at conferences and take part in workshops to share my knowledge and skills with the greater design community. One of my missions as a designer is to improve the design industry as a whole, to make design more engaging, relevant but also fun. Using motion design to add moments of delight can make a huge improvement to a product.