OWL Sport Pickleball Performance Animations

Winnow+Glean / OWL Sport / 2024

A tighter bounce, shown shot by shot.

My role: Lottie animation and data-driven motion graphics

Delivered: Three Lottie animations comparing the bounce of OWL's TV40 pickleball with competing balls, HTML previews and MP4 renders, and a January 2025 update round

Tools: After Effects, Bodymovin (Lottie)

The brief

OWL Sport wanted website animations that show how its pickleball performs against balls already on the market. The brief called for competitor balls drifting and deviating, OWL's ball tracing tighter and more consistent trajectories, short statistic callouts, and three separate views of the court. The design files came from the agency Winnow+Glean.

The build

I animated the three sequences in After Effects and exported them as 1920x1080, 60 fps Lottie files, each with an HTML preview and an MP4 render for review. Every sequence plays the competitor ball first and then the TV40 ball, so the difference in spread reads at a glance.

The constraint

The review notes asked for more shots inside each cone of deviation (at least five bounces per side), a smaller ball as it travels across the court to fake perspective, the TV40 ball recoloured green, and a 'Simulation based on measured data' disclaimer. All of that had to stay inside lightweight Lottie files; the updated set went out on 15 January 2025.

The delivered experience

Three Lottie files with preview pages, plus MP4 renders of each round, delivered between 11 December 2024 and 16 January 2025.