Client: T-Mobile
Role: Art Director
Assignment: Art direct several commercial and social videos
Production: Vossler
Director: Josiah Savage
Creative Director: Brian Lohr
Overview
Vossler Media out of Kirkland, WA is one of T-Mobile's agencies of choice. Since 2015 they've called me in to freelance Art Direct and design whenever they needed extra help on a project. With a full sound stage, animation team, and video crew, any idea imaginable can be created there, making my job incredibly fun and fulfilling.
Goal
Work with the Creative Directors, copywriters, and animators to bring T-Mobile's script to life through great Art Direction. The timelines are often tight and demanding and you can expect several iterations, changes, and complete pivots to happen at a moment's notice so I need to be on my toes and have the openness and willingness to change direction on the fly.
My Role
I start each project with an in-depth deep dive into the task at hand by meeting with key stakeholders, directors, and clients. I then compile the big picture into chewable steps, adhering to deadlines, budget and capabilities of the crew. Each project usually begins with me hand-sketching storyboards or comping together mood boards in Photoshop. Once approved by the stakeholders, I sync with animation to walk through each phase of the project and make sure my notes and direction are clear and achievable given the parameters.
Then, I either task out design elements to graphic designers or I just build them out myself, usually in Illustrator, and then save and export them in a format ready to go for animation.
Then the fun part of watching it all come to life through the animators begins and usually results in long nights waiting for renderings and comps to finish. All along, I'm connecting with the CD on the project and the Director on set to make sure visions are aligned with the clients and everything is still on schedule.
Finally, when the project is ready to send, the team collectively and meticulously goes through frame by frame to make sure the result is pixel-perfect.
Result:
Every project is unique and if you've ever worked alongside John Legere (former CEO of T-Mobile), you know things can get wild. But at the end of the day, as long as communication is clear between me, the directors, the crew, and the client, there will be great content that consumers love to watch and happy clients that are happy to come back for more work.