Freelance Interactive Designer
Freelance Interaction / Motion Designer ( Product / UI / Motion)
Start: ASAP
Duration: 3 months (likely to extend)
Rate: £450/day via Umbrella
Onsite: 5 days per week
Location: East London
What You'll Do
Motion Design:
Define and deliver the motion system for a mobile product experience:
- Loading and processing states - how the interface communicates that work is happening.
- Transitions between contexts - smooth, purposeful movement as users move between tasks.
- Approval and confirmation choreography - moments where users pause, review, and act.
- Content appearance - how new information reveals itself on screen.
- Error and recovery - how the interface communicates problems gracefully.
- Micro-interactions - the small things: button feedback, expansion, selection, reorder.
- Iconography:
Design a cohesive icon set from scratch:
- Functional icons across multiple capability areas.
- State indicators - processing, success, failure, pending.
- Any illustrations for empty states and onboarding. Prototyping and Handoff:
- High-fidelity motion prototypes that demonstrate timing and feel.
- Engineer-ready exports.
- Design system contributions with full usage guidelines and motion tokens.
Key Deliverables
- A motion system: principles, tokens, and reference animations.
- An icon set covering all functional areas and states.
- Motion prototypes for core user flows.
- Exported assets and developer handoff documentation.
Skills and Experience
Essential:
A portfolio that demonstrates craft in interaction and motion design for mobile - timing,
choreography, micro-detail.
Deep expertise in motion principles: easing, duration, sequencing, and how motion communicates state.
Experience designing icon systems with consistent weight, grid, and visual language.
Proficiency in Figma and a motion tool (After Effects + Lottie, Principle, Rive, or similar).
Experience contributing to a design system with motion and component specs.
Understanding of motion accessibility (prefers-reduced-motion, WCAG guidelines).
Ability to hand off work cleanly to engineers.
Preferred:
- Experience with card-based or flowing interfaces (messaging, support, or similar patterns).
- Familiarity with designing for dynamically generated content and real-time interactions.
- Experience in trust-sensitive domains (financial services, health, government).
- Understanding of Lottie workflows and mobile animation performance.
- React Native awareness is a plus.
Must have experience and samples of:
- App-based product work
- Interaction design / UI elements
- Figma motion / prototyping
- Screen transitions
- Drop-down / component behaviour
- Loading states / spinners
- Mobile apps
- Scrolling / navigation principles
- Motion principles / design system thinking
- Tech or digital product examples
- Work that has gone into production
Experience as:
- Product Motion Designer
- Motion / Interaction Designer
- UI Motion Designer
- Interaction Designer with motion examples
- Product Designer with strong motion / prototyping examples
- Figma motion / prototype specialists