and action digest: top highlights for your 2024 planning

This is a game in which we summed up our last year [it was creative, successful, and full]. So, we invite you to play together - 12 ideas to make 2024 a great year.

Informational reference: the game covers three categories: get achievements, strengthen your team, develop, gain strength, and do good things with the and action team.

1. Strategic session with your team. To sync dreams with the team, think together, brainstorm, and plan goals for the year.

We started our year with a strategic session where we set priorities. Everyone was involved, and everyone's opinions were heard. This is how our "sandbox" appeared - a playground where everyone can develop and build their own [or shared] ideas and projects.

2. Get millions of views of your project

Last year, we created a few animations for TED-Ed . It was a total match! The most enjoyable moment was reading all the lovely comments on YouTube about the video and animation when the project was done and published. We counted that our TED-Ed videos were viewed more than 14.5 million times.

3. Upgrade your workplace

We like our office, there are many places to work. We rearranged it and added new furniture and lighting, making it even cozier.

4. Implement your craziest idea (+5 points for bravery)

We love it when projects have space for realizing crazy ideas. Our video for uSoftware was an exciting challenge for the whole team. If you have not seen the video behind the scenes, click here.

5. Cooperate with talented industry leaders.

Last year, we cooperated with incredible agencies: Taktika Agency , banda , Bickerstaff.734 , fedoriv??marketing?innovation , superfuture , SHOTS , Grape , and ddd agency . Also, we made new inspiring connections ??

Such opens new horizons for creative results.

6. Create for your lovemark brands

Each of us has our own lovemarks. Last year, we not only created many projects, but many of them were for those brands that we really love: Upwork , Figma , Vodafone Ukraine , MasterZoo , Uklon , COMFY consumer electronics retail , С?льпо and many more. So, anything is possible ??

7. Do for good

Our team participated in the Race for the Cure Northwest NC charity run, supported fundraising for our defenders, and created various videos for social communications, for example, about the launch of an e-ticket in our hometown.

8. Make the unusual, ordinary

Last year, we used a lot of AI, 3D, and VFX in our projects. Artificial intelligence has helped us in our work for Comfy, Vizex, Lamel Cosmetics , IT Arena , and other clients. It turned out so bright and juicy. By the way, we shared various AI cases here.

9. Purr stop: make your office pet-friendly

Since the very beginning, and action office was pet-friendly. Probably, you have seen the pictures with the dogs of our colleagues, but now we also have Coconut cat. Coconut is a frequent visitor to our office and happily purrs while we work [probably because he doesn't need to]. So now we have more diversity in our pet-friendly office full of dogs.

10. Systematize the work

Our last year was dedicated to processes building and systematization. We started using many different tools for work. Figma is our number one. Our soul and heart. Here, we build project timelines and all the project visuals, storyboards, references, and comments; we have a Figma retro workshop framework and design system for SMM. If we have to recommend one tool for work, this is it. We also use Asana , Frame.io , and Float.com .

11. Share your knowledge and experience.

For 3 years, our team shared knowledge during the "Multimedia formats" course at Ukrainian Catholic University , which is curated by Khrystyna Boyko ???? . Also, our colleagues from the animation team are curators at Projector Institute . We hold lectures and speak at conferences such as IT Meets , Practical school of communication Bazilik , SKVOT and others. Because sharing is caring. ??

12. Don't forget to say "Thanks" to your team

Thanking each other is one of the most important stages of work.

We introduced retro, where we remember all the good things and learn lessons with the client. We created a Self-love club and designed custom merch for everyone on the team, where we wrote down 10 things that each of us loves. We also created a thank you chat where you can express your gratitude to anyone from the team.

So, it's time to thank you for reading our digest. We hope that it will boost your year planning. Thank you!

Please feel free to share your top takeouts from the previous year. ??

idea and content by Mariana Fedyna and Khrystyna Boyko ????

visuals by Oleksandra Tarkovska