Typekit Library
Library that Started with a Survey
The Situation
The existing MOGRT library was inherited, not designed. A previous employee had assembled a collection of text tools that were largely non-functional, visually inconsistent with Hearst's motion standards, and built without a clear picture of who would actually be using them. The ask? Fix it. What I built instead started from scratch.
The Task
Before a single frame was designed, I asked what others hadn’t: who are these tools actually for, and what do they actually need? Inspired by a session I'd had directly with the After Effects team at Adobe, I put together a user survey covering proficiency levels, workflow priorities, layout preferences, deployment contexts, and what version of software stations were still running. That last detail turned out to matter enormously.
The Work
The survey surfaced a constraint that would have derailed the project mid-build: local Premiere plugins critical to Control Room workflows meant we had to design in a significantly older version of After Effects than what was current. Knowing that upfront shaped every technical decision that followed.
From there I mapped the full functionality matrix in XD — what controls every layout would share, what the consistent interaction patterns would be — so that any MOGRT in the library felt predictable regardless of which one an editor opened. Reliability by design, not by accident.
The build required taking animations from other motion designers and rigging them into fully controllable MOGRTs — something the Creative Expression Library made possible at a scale that would have otherwise been prohibitive. I also embedded a direct help ticket link inside the tools themselves, so issues surfaced in real time and the library stayed current.
This project was where we first formalized our Alpha and Beta testing pipeline for MOGRTs — a structured process for catching issues before anything reached end users, and a standard that carried forward across the organization. Delivery through Adobe Libraries was an equally deliberate choice: the only tools in our ecosystem that bypass the DAM, because Libraries keep them live, updateable, and accessible inside the editor's panel without any manual steps. The tools were designed with a layered experience — essential controls up front for editors who need to move fast, deeper customization available for those who want to dig in.
EGP of Impact - Single Line
Library organization and meta data have been key
The Outcome
Six years later, the HTV Typekit is still in heavy daily use across the entire television station group. Editors who never think about motion design are effortlessly maintaining Hearst's font, color, and motion standards — because the tools make the right choice the easy choice. The Alpha/Beta testing pipeline born here became a lasting organizational standard, and the Libraries delivery model it pioneered is still the workflow today. The Typekit helped prove MOGRTs were a viable delivery tool and they were embraced quickly. This lead directly to MOGRT tools designed for social media, linear newscasts, and OTT streaming workflows.
The original ask was to fix a broken library. What came out the other side was a system, a testing process, and a delivery standard — all built on the foundation of actually listening to users before picking up a single tool.