Yardtopia
How to Build a Botanical Bento
Once again, working with the lovely folks at Forge on Yardtopia to produce a beautiful explainer motion graphic for their Botanical Bento.
What I did
Motion design, storyboarding, asset creation
Agency
Forge
What was the process here? We start by looking closely at the scripts, breaking them down beat by beat to understand pacing, tone, and where the visual emphasis needs to land. From there, we build fully fleshed out storyboards, carefully constructing the composition for each individual frame as we go, thinking through layout, hierarchy, and how each shot will transition into the next. Once the storyboard was signed off with the client, every composition was imported into After Effects, where the static frames were gradually brought to life in motion, layer by layer, until the piece felt fluid and intentional from start to finish.
The style focused on a considered mix of real textures and illustrated diagrams, blending tactile, grounded elements with clean vector linework to create a piece that toed the line between modern luxury and quirky infographic. It was a balance that had to feel polished without losing its sense of personality.
A total of 45 hours was spent on this project from start to finish. Creating the storyboards first proved an incredibly efficient way of locking down the style, framing, and pacing early, and getting full sign off before investing time into animation. It meant every decision made in motion was building on a foundation that had already been tested and approved, rather than being figured out on the fly.
At the time of writing this project description, the video has amassed over 350k views on YouTube.
Storyboard
Before we brought the assets to life, detailed storyboards were created, with the compositions built and layered in Photoshop so that feedback was easily implemented before proceeding.
Cutdowns
Alongside the main 16:9 motion graphic, two shorter, oppositely ratio’d cutdowns for social were also required.

