marisa

rafter

Motion designer and creative producer with a decade of experience across the full production pipeline. Equally comfortable finding the story or bringing it to life. My work spans 2D animation, live action, audio, and physical media. I specialize in moving fast, thinking outside the box, and shaping raw ideas into compelling content.

2D ANIMATION | BRILLIANT

Bringing a new universe to life

When Brilliant introduced Koji as its mascot, our team was tasked with defining the app's core metaphor and how Koji would live within it, using an onboarding redesign as the testing ground. I helped shape his character by exploring an origin as a "particle" — which became his intro/outro animation — and created the first concept animations of Koji traveling through a portal, visualizing Brilliant as a parallel universe you enter to learn.

That portal idea became the app's central metaphor, and I was part of the team that built the resulting Koji-hosted onboarding flow — which lifted signups 6.5% and trial starts 6.4% over the previous version.

2D ANIMATION | BRILLIANT

Bringing a new universe to life

When Brilliant introduced Koji as its mascot, our team was tasked with defining the app's core metaphor and how Koji would live within it, using an onboarding redesign as the testing ground. I helped shape his character by exploring an origin as a "particle" — which became his intro/outro animation — and created the first concept animations of Koji traveling through a portal, visualizing Brilliant as a parallel universe you enter to learn.

That portal idea became the app's central metaphor, and I was part of the team that built the resulting Koji-hosted onboarding flow — which lifted signups 6.5% and trial starts 6.4% over the previous version.

2D ANIMATION | BRILLIANT

Averting expectations

Brilliant's premium upsell ads ran between lessons — a moment when users just want to get back to learning. Looking at how apps like Duolingo leaned on their mascots and kept each ad to a single value prop, I proposed the same approach here: one clear idea per ad, giving us room to lean into entertainment over a hard sell. For some ads, like the one featuring ancient mathematician Archimedes, I created the concept and original script. For others, I iterated on my colleagues' concepts, developing the humor further in the animation phase through timing, cuts, zooms, visual effects, and sound design. Users liked the ads so much, they started leaving comments about them in our app store reviews.

VIDEO INTERVIEWS | BRILLIANT

Finding stories 

Our scripted ads weren’t connecting with parents, so we pivoted to unscripted interviews with our in-house education experts — grabbing colleagues for quick 20-minute sessions during a company onsite. During one session, I noticed our interviewee had a visceral reaction to the question “What’s hard about teaching math?” and knew we’d hit on something. I built the edit around that authentic moment and we immediately saw success. Our experts had genuine opinions about math education and a natural ability to challenge commonly held beliefs. This unexpected question format became our core META ad strategy. Within days I was setting up new interviews, throwing unexpected questions to find the next unscripted moment worth building around. The approach continued to work well enough that I flew to Chicago to shoot more interviews with our CEO and a member of the board.

VIDEO INTERVIEWS | BRILLIANT

Finding stories 

Our scripted ads weren’t connecting with parents, so we pivoted to unscripted interviews with our in-house education experts — grabbing colleagues for quick 20-minute sessions during a company onsite. During one session, I noticed our interviewee had a visceral reaction to the question “What’s hard about teaching math?” and knew we’d hit on something. I built the edit around that authentic moment and we immediately saw success. Our experts had genuine opinions about math education and a natural ability to challenge commonly held beliefs. This unexpected question format became our core META ad strategy. Within days I was setting up new interviews, throwing unexpected questions to find the next unscripted moment worth building around. The approach continued to work well enough that I flew to Chicago to shoot more interviews with our CEO and a member of the board.

STOP MOTION | JACK CONTE / PATREON

Getting hands on

Jack Conte — founder of Patreon and one of the original YouTube creators — was relaunching his personal channel with a video about the new possibilities of being a creator. His producer came with a script and a vision, and we developed the story together before I took it into production. I brought Jack’s actual creative history to life through the objects that defined it: his instruments, his old video cameras and the notebook where he first sketched the idea for Patreon. I shot the two-minute piece in four days across two locations, bringing my own camera and lighting gear, automating a robotic camera slider, and hand-animating hundreds of items. We wrapped in two weeks.

STOP MOTION | JACK CONTE / PATREON

Getting hands on

Jack Conte — founder of Patreon and one of the original YouTube creators — was relaunching his personal channel with a video about the new possibilities of being a creator. His producer came with a script and a vision, and we developed the story together before I took it into production. I brought Jack’s actual creative history to life through the objects that defined it: his instruments, his old video cameras and the notebook where he first sketched the idea for Patreon. I shot the two-minute piece in four days across two locations, bringing my own camera and lighting gear, automating a robotic camera slider, and hand-animating hundreds of items. We wrapped in two weeks.

VISUAL NOTES | SALESFORCE, EY, SANDISK

Making sense of complexity

I got my start at a small multi-media animation studio where in addition to animation and video production, I spent years doing live graphic recording at tech conferences — synthesizing complex topics into visual narratives in real time, blank canvas and permanent marker in hand. That environment taught me how to listen closely, process information fast, and find the core story.

VISUAL NOTES | SALESFORCE, EY, SANDISK

Making sense of complexity

I got my start at a small multi-media animation studio where in addition to animation and video production, I spent years doing live graphic recording at tech conferences — synthesizing complex topics into visual narratives in real time, blank canvas and permanent marker in hand. That environment taught me how to listen closely, process information fast, and find the core story.

Thriving in uncertainty

My life has been defined by a major theme:  I am unusually capable of diving into unfamiliar spaces and figuring out how to make something amazing. Even outside of work, I love the growth that comes from taking on intimidating challenges and doing things I wasn’t sure I could do—whether that’s teaching myself to knit, building an indoor hydroponic garden, renovating rooms, or learning to drive a tractor.

That drive is rooted in my history as an internationally competitive ultimate frisbee player and winner of the Callahan Award (the sport’s college MVP). The highlight video I made as my entry went viral, and to this day, people come up to me at tournaments to tell me how it changed what they believed was possible. 

Constantly pushing my own limits has built a deep tenacity and an unusually wide creative range across animation, design, and making things with my hands. I naturally gravitate toward small, scrappy teams and a constant stream of new, varied projects. Right now, I’m looking for a role where I can get hands on and flex my full creativity.

marisa.rafter@gmail.com

Working together

“Marisa is talented, adaptable, endlessly curious, and grounded in the fundamentals of good storytelling […] She’s a creative team’s ultimate Swiss Army knife, moving effortlessly between any and every creative project.”

COLE BOLTON | BRILLIANT

“If I were a client, Marisa is the woman I’d turn to when I’m a little bit desperate, in over my head, and have no idea which way to turn. Her competence, creativity, and practicality make her an excellent match for righting the ship.”

BETHANY KAYLOR | ROGUEMARK

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