JTB Business Travel is part of JTB, a worldwide leader in travel with a network of more than 159 offices in 80 cities and 35 countries. The project was developed in collaboration with Ruff Haus, a San Diego branding firm.
This two-minute explainer introduces Teal, JTB Business Travel’s new corporate travel management product. The piece needed to perform across two distinct environments: silent playback on a trade show floor and narrated viewing online.
• Role – Motion Design Lead Developed the motion strategy and owned end-to-end execution from concept development and storyboarding through animation and final delivery. Navigated dual-context requirements and an incomplete product UI.
• Tools – After Effects, Premiere Pro
The Challenge
The project required the video to perform effectively in two distinct contexts:
• Trade show environment No audio, high distraction, and viewers at a distance. The message needed to be communicated through motion, layout, and typography alone.
• Online viewing Narrated viewing online, requiring deliberate pacing to support comprehension without overloading the viewer.
Beyond the dual-context requirement, the product itselfwas still in development, and some features could not be shown with finalized UI. The motion design needed to communicate real product value without relying on interface visuals that were not yet complete.
Motion Strategy
The piece was approached as a clarity challenge: how to communicate a complex product quickly, without finalized UI, across two distinct viewing contexts.
The solution was a two-track motion strategy:
• Attention + legibility for the trade show Bold typography, simplified staging, and high-contrast motion designed to read instantly in a high-noise setting.
• Comprehension for online viewers For online viewing, script pacing and visual sequencing were carefully structured so narration could guide the viewer through each concept step by step, building a mental model of the product progressively.
Motion Decisions
• Visualizing the Problem
The script describes business travel management as overwhelming. Rather than listing the challenges as static text, a rotating structure placed all elements in simultaneous motion to embody that feeling directly. Controlled pacing kept each element readable without losing the sense of complexity.
• Typography as the primary system
Text motion provided a clear, scannable way to communicate value across both silent and narrated viewing contexts, without relying on complex visuals.
• Designing around incomplete UI
With the product still in development and finalized UI unavailable, abstract diagrams, spatial relationships, and metaphor-based animation communicated concepts such as global deployment and centralized control.
• Current state vs. future state contrast
Visual contrast was used to differentiate existing pain points from the proposed solution. Stock footage was curated to show the same personas experiencing frustration in the current state and confidence in the future state.
Outcome
The explainer was deployed at the BTSE trade show in June 2025 and has continued to serve as a primary marketing asset on JTB Business Travel’s YouTube channel, supporting ongoing product awareness beyond the launch.
