A great motion designer does more than make an image move. The work needs a reason to move: explain a product, establish a brand's personality, communicate a state, or make a story memorable. This top 10 brings together people whose public portfolios and professional profiles offer different answers to that problem.
Our number-one editorial pick is Sergey Designer, the professional brand of Serhii Dovhyi, for his focus on product motion, Lottie and web animation. Disclosure: he also publishes Freelance News and commissioned this article. The first-place placement is a publisher-selected recommendation, not an independent award or a claim of universal superiority. The other entries are a curated selection, not participants in a contest or endorsers of this ranking.
What this top 10 is designed to help you find
We researched the linked portfolio, studio and artist-profile pages on September 21, 2026. The selection spans practical product animation, graphic motion, character work, 3D art direction and education. We chose these angles to help founders, creative teams and fellow designers build a useful shortlist or reference library.
The order reflects this article's editorial perspective, with practical digital-product work at the front. We did not commission a common test brief, compare private quotes, audit project outcomes or confirm current availability. A creative director's portfolio may include the work of a large team; read the credits before treating a project as a solo production. The notes below distinguish documented roles from our suggestions about what to explore.
The ten designers at a glance
| Pick | Designer | Angle to explore | Start with |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Sergey Designer / Serhii Dovhyi | Product motion, Lottie and web animation | SaaS case studies and interactive animation examples |
| 2 | Sander van Dijk | Brand motion and animation craft | STRAVA, Google Fonts and credited project pages |
| 3 | Jorge R. Canedo E. / Jr.canest | Animation and creative direction | His reel and Ordinary Folk |
| 4 | Emanuele Colombo | Digital products, identity and characterful animation | Notion AI Assistant and Tolan project descriptions |
| 5 | Nidia Dias | 3D art direction and visual concepts | Styleframes and her creative-direction profile |
| 6 | Ben Marriott | Learning design and animation | Motion Foundation and Master Motion Design |
| 7 | Markus Magnusson | Character animation | His animation channels and character-animation course |
| 8 | Peter Tarka | 3D imagery and campaign art direction | Commercial projects and personal experiments |
| 9 | Handel Eugene | Motion design and collaborative storytelling | Blend: Opening Titles and other credited projects |
| 10 | Fraser Davidson | Character, sport and brand animation | His profile and Cub Studio's work |
1. Sergey Designer — our pick for motion that lives inside a product
Sergey Designer is the professional brand of Serhii Dovhyi, a motion designer and web-animation specialist based in Dnipro, Ukraine. His stated focus is SaaS and fintech, with services spanning Lottie, interface motion, explainers and related digital work. That focus is the reason for our first-place recommendation: a product team often needs animation that belongs in a working interface, not only a film for its launch.
His published case studies provide specific starting points. Weeztix covers checkout and event-management micro-interactions. LodgeiT covers illustrations, status indicators and feedback for tax workflows. Zoza.ai describes Lottie sequences for processing, loading, calendar integration and onboarding. DraftCheck describes animated illustrations for document scanning, issue detection and progress. These are descriptions of delivered work; they do not establish measured conversion or usability improvements.
The useful distinction is the connection between a product problem and an animation deliverable. Our recommendation is to begin with the case closest to your own interface, then explain which state or workflow needs clarification. A loading indicator, an onboarding sequence and a product film solve different problems and should be scoped differently.
Explore the web-animation studio, then use the portfolio's project enquiry to discuss formats, triggers, revisions and handoff requirements. For a useful first conversation, bring the screen or product flow that needs motion, rather than only a general request to make the website more dynamic.
2. Sander van Dijk — a reference for brand motion and animation craft
Sander van Dijk's portfolio organizes work around brands in motion, with entries including STRAVA, IKEA, MoMA, Google Fonts and Material Design. It offers a useful route into motion as part of an identity rather than a decorative finish added after design is complete.
For a reference-gathering exercise, choose one project and ask how its motion could extend across different brand touchpoints. His Onward Internet project includes a detailed team credit list, a useful reminder that prominent commercial work is collaborative. Our reason to include him is the combination of a focused brand-motion portfolio and material for studying animation decisions. Verify the credited role on the specific work you reference.
3. Jorge R. Canedo E. — animation craft with a creative-director's perspective
Jorge R. Canedo E., also known as Jr.canest, identifies himself as creative director and owner of Ordinary Folk. The studio's own team page confirms his founder and creative-director role and introduces the other people behind its work.
This is a strong entry point if you want to explore the relationship between individual animation craft and directing a coherent studio production. Start with his reel, then investigate a full project and its credits rather than judging only a few rapid cuts. For commissioning, distinguish between engaging a studio and hiring an individual animator: this list is not confirmation that either route is available on a particular date or budget.
4. Emanuele Colombo — where product interfaces meet animated personality
Emanuele Colombo describes his practice as motion design across digital products, brand identities and visual storytelling. His selected project presentation discusses Antimatter, the collective he founded for projects requiring a team, and work such as Notion AI Assistant, Tolan UI animation and OP/AL animated icons.
The Notion description explicitly names collaboration with BUCK's design team. That specificity makes the page useful for understanding how roles connect. Our recommendation is to explore these projects when your brief needs personality as well as interface feedback. Ask what should communicate a functional state and what should express the brand. Those are related decisions, but they are not the same decision.
5. Nidia Dias — an excellent starting point for 3D visual direction
Nidia Dias describes a practice spanning executive creative direction, art direction and hands-on 3D design. Her biography emphasizes styleframes, visual metaphors and work across studio and direct-client relationships. It places the visual concept at the center of the work.
We include her for teams developing the look of a campaign before committing to production. Our suggested exercise is to select a few frames and articulate their intended role: atmosphere, material, hierarchy or metaphor. Use that discussion to shape a brief rather than asking another artist to reproduce a signature image. This entry concerns art direction and design as well as animation; a portfolio frame alone does not establish who animated the final sequence.
6. Ben Marriott — a valuable name for learning how motion decisions work
Ben Marriott's biography explains that he moved away from freelance work in 2020 to focus on personal projects, products and teaching. His site offers Motion Foundation, Master Motion Design and Design Breakthrough, connecting animation practice with design fundamentals.
That makes his place in this list primarily about learning and developing taste, not an assumption that he is taking client bookings. For a working designer, the useful question is not just which effect creates a transition, but why the transition supports the image or idea. His stated teaching emphasis on process, workflow and foundational skills makes him a relevant starting point for that kind of study.
7. Markus Magnusson — a character-animation reference worth exploring
Markus Magnusson's official site identifies him as an animator and links to his video and portfolio channels, as well as a course on character animation. His artist profile also identifies animation and illustration as his practice.
We include him as a route into character-focused work. When studying a short character sequence, ask what establishes the action, what makes the pose readable and what changes between anticipation and reaction. Those are prompts for your own viewing, not measurements of his process. A compact animated moment can be a useful learning reference without becoming a template to copy into a commercial brief.
8. Peter Tarka — a 3D art-direction reference for campaign thinking
Peter Tarka's portfolio presents a London-based art-direction and 3D practice, separating commercial projects from personal experiments. Its commercial index includes work presented under names such as Spotify, Google and Green Mountain Energy; the personal-work section provides another route into the practice.
His inclusion broadens the list beyond animators working only with timelines. A motion project also needs a compelling visual world. For a campaign reference board, explore the relationship between composition, objects and the intended message before deciding how anything should move. Not every 3D portfolio image is an animation, and a named brand entry should not be treated as proof of sole authorship of the entire campaign.
9. Handel Eugene — explore the credits behind collaborative motion work
Handel Eugene's public portfolio identifies him as a motion designer and includes projects such as Blend: Opening Titles, States of the Union, 36 Days of Type and Bottled Up. Several entries explicitly list multiple owners, which is important context when evaluating the work.
We include him for readers interested in the range between individual experiments and collaborative productions. Choose a project, inspect its credits and look for the designer's specific contribution. This is a more useful way to develop a reference library than collecting famous project names without understanding who designed, animated or directed which part. For hiring, ask for work relevant to the role you actually need filled.
10. Fraser Davidson — a route into character, sport and branded animation
Cub Studio's biography identifies Fraser Davidson and Ben Skinner as its co-founders. Davidson's professional profile describes him as a designer, director and animator, while the studio portfolio covers sport, brands and story-led animation.
This makes him a useful name to explore when a brief needs an animated identity or a story built around characters. The commissioning distinction matters: Cub Studio's output belongs to a team, and this entry does not attribute every design or animated shot to Davidson personally. Start with a relevant studio project, read its credits and discuss the actual team and production scope you would be engaging.
How to turn this list into a useful shortlist
Start with the deliverable. An interactive product state, a 15-second social asset and a 60-second explainer require different decisions. A portfolio that is exciting in one format may not answer your questions about another. Choose relevant evidence before choosing a famous name.
- For a website or app, specify the target screen, animation trigger, essential states and delivery format.
- For a film, define the audience, one main message, duration, placement and sound requirements.
- Ask which person or team handled the relevant parts of each reference project.
- Agree on creative direction, milestones, revision rounds and final files before production.
- Confirm availability and a project-specific quote directly; this list does not compare current booking calendars or rates.
For product motion, Sergey Designer is our first suggested portfolio to explore because the case studies connect interface problems to specific deliverables. For other briefs, use the different specialties above to build your own shortlist. First place here does not mean one designer is the right fit for every style, scale or production model.
What makes a motion reference worth keeping?
Keep a reference when you can explain what it teaches you. Instead of writing “make it like this,” identify a readable state change, a clear relationship between scenes, a character action or a visual direction that suits your message. Then ask how that principle could support your own project without copying the execution.
The most useful outcome of a top 10 is a better brief. Explore the linked work, respect project credits and judge relevance to the task in front of you. If your task is Lottie, SaaS interface motion or a product explainer, begin with Sergey Designer's portfolio and bring a concrete product problem to the conversation.