Digital Science

About the project

Digital Science is a global technology company that supports the research lifecycle, working with universities, publishers, funders, and research organisations worldwide. Founded in 2010, the business has grown rapidly, bringing together a diverse portfolio of products, platforms, and services that help researchers make better decisions, faster.

As the organisation expanded, so did the diversity of its people. With teams spanning multiple disciplines, geographies, and specialisms, Digital Science’s HR team recognised the need for a clear, engaging way to introduce new starters to who the company is, how it operates, and how every individual fits into the wider organisation.

Challenge

Traditional onboarding materials struggled to capture the scale and complexity of Digital Science in a way that felt coherent, human, and inspiring. New joiners needed more than an organisational chart, they needed an understanding of purpose, structure, and interdependency.

The challenge was to explain a multifaceted business in a simple, memorable way:

• Who Digital Science is

• How the organisation is structured

• How teams and individuals work together to create something greater than the sum of its parts

All within a format that would engage, educate, and feel true to the company’s scientific roots.

Solutions

We developed an animated onboarding film built around a central metaphor: the Periodic Table.

Just as individual elements each have a unique role, place, and purpose (yet combine to form powerful compounds), we positioned Digital Science’s teams as individual elements within a larger system. Each function was represented as its own “element,” visually distinct but intrinsically connected to the whole.

This structure allowed us to:

• Clearly communicate how the company is organised

• Highlight the importance of every team and role

• Reinforce the idea of collaboration, balance, and shared purpose

The animation style was deliberately clean and graphic, using motion, rhythm, and space to guide viewers through the story. As elements moved, connected, and aligned, the narrative demonstrated how Digital Science brings people together to support the global research community.

The result was an onboarding experience that felt intelligent, purposeful, and distinctly Digital Science – rooted in scientific logic, but delivered with warmth and clarity.