Sanu Sagar: Marvel, Hummers, and now Rive

When you ask Sanu Sagar what he does for work, his answer depends on who’s asking. 

“If you’ve seen Iron Man’s HUD — those holographic maps, the glowing graphics inside the helmet — that’s one way to describe it,” he says. “But now imagine building that same level of fidelity for real-world products.”

Sanu's showreel

The path to Marvel movie credits

As a kid in India, Sanu spent more time sketching characters and inventing dice games than plotting a career. One thing changed everything: a weekly show about video game development. 

“I realized there were people making games and making money doing it,” he laughs. “That blew my mind.”

After school, he went to New Delhi to study animation and visual effects. During his course, he discovered the work of Perception and Territory Studios, which inspired him to specialize in UI design and take a UI course. In his final year, he began posting his own UI concepts on Twitter

In 2016, one of those posts caught the eye of John LePore, then creative director at Perception, the studio behind many of the UI systems in Iron Man 2, Batman v Superman, and other major films. John messaged him: “Hey Sanu, we should talk.” 

Months later, Sanu was flying to New York to work on Thor: Ragnarok as a design animation intern at Perception. His name rolled in the credits. He was 24. 

“I remember watching the movie in theaters and seeing my name,” he says. “It didn’t feel real.”

Learning to design inside constraints

At Perception, one of the few studios in the world specializing in fictional UI (FUI), Sanu’s film work included holographic readouts, head-up displays, and complex spatial visualizations. It had to be realistic enough for audiences to believe in tech that doesn’t (yet) exist. 

It was here he learned to translate film’s high-style visuals into functional interfaces for cutting-edge hardware. One of his biggest projects was the GMC Hummer EV’s in-car UI. Over nearly two years, he worked from concept through handoff, creating detailed 3D widgets and interaction patterns for a real driver in a real vehicle. 

The process was a study in constraints. The dashboard had to look futuristic while meeting strict OEM guidelines, running smoothly on limited graphics memory, and surviving endless rounds of iteration with teams spread across time zones.

When design meets dev friction

Automotive UI taught Sanu just how painful the designer-developer handoff could be.

“We were building high-fidelity motion graphics in After Effects,” he says. “Then exporting every state, every sequence, as PNGs. If the client asked for a 10-pixel nudge, it meant 15 re-renders and another back-and-forth with engineers. Brutal.”

On top of that, many clients lacked strong GPU support. “We’d create these detailed widgets with glows and animations, and they’d ask us to reduce everything down to one frame. Just an on/off state with no motion. It killed the work.”

What was missing was a tool that let motion and code meet without losing style or fidelity. 

Finding Rive

When Sanu discovered Rive, those pain points were still fresh. “It was exactly what I needed,” he says. “A tool that looks and feels like After Effects, but outputs production-ready UI.” 

Unlike static exports, Rive graphics are live and responsive. Designers can bind properties to data, define logic in state machines, and iterate in real time.

Now at Rive, Sanu works on interactive components that echo his film and automotive background. And loves that his work is shareable. 

“In film, I spent years on things I couldn’t even talk about. At Rive, I share experiments often.” 

Sanu's work at Rive

Real design for real products

For Sanu, Rive is a creative playground for designers who want to build real things. 

“You can take an idea, animate it, and test it live. Want to design a next-gen flight HUD? A medical interface? A racing game UI? You don’t need a dev team. You just need the file and a little curiosity.”

Advice to aspiring motion designers

If you’re early in your career, Sanu says, don’t niche down too soon. “Everyone thought I was just a UI guy,” he says. “But I was doing 3D, motion, product design. I wish I had showcased more range earlier on.”

He references the T-shaped designer model: wide foundational skills, deep specialization in one area. “You need to know how to build the car and the interface. Don’t limit yourself.”

Looking ahead

As interactive technologies evolve and motion becomes central to every platform, from automotive to wearables, Sanu believes Rive will be essential. 

“Interfaces are no longer just screens. They’re spaces. They react. They guide. And Rive is the canvas for building them now.”

Catch him speaking on motion design and Rive at Bigbasket Bangalore on September 6.