Mountain Duck

The story of how I helped Iterate promote their Mountain Duck software

Iterate are Bern-based Swiss software developers who specialise in making software for securely transferring files between local disks and cloud-based servers and storage solutions. They wanted to reinvigorate the Mountain Duck brand, so they gave me free rein over their visual identity and website design.

Duck-based animated graphics

Over the past few years, my work has involved designing data visualisations, making graphic designs, and animating SVG illustrations, which I use to tell stories about clients, their products, and their work. In one of our conversations, Iterate described Mountain Duck as “a machine that moves files,” so I created duck-based machinery that does just that. I wanted to illustrate a machine that clearly moves files from local to remote and back again, so I started with a steampunk-style sketch.

When I create vector illustrations, I start with outlines and then block in layers of colours using as few path points as possible. I’ve developed a process for creating SVG animations by separating the static elements and moving parts into separate layers, so I can animate them individually. This Mountain Duck machine is driven by cogs and gears, so I exported and added them to my SVG file one by one, which made it easier to code when it was time to add CSS and JavaScript animations.

I even hid an Easter egg where jamming the machine makes it glow red hot and shake. Can you find how to trigger it?

Website design and development

Animation, graphic design, and illustration is only a part of the work I do. I also spend time crafting user experiences which help people engage with brands like Mountain Duck. I created pages which describe the benefits of using the product, plus others that include technical information about Mountain Duck.

Finally, I developed a static HTML/CSS prototype and integrated a simple-to-use CMS so the team at Iterate can manage their content without friction.

The outcomes

• Bespoke design and original illustrations
• SVG animated graphics
• Eleventy CMS for easy content editing

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