Client:
T-Mobile Advertising
T-Mobile Advertising
Role:
Design Director
Art Director
Visual & Motion Strategy
Design Director
Art Director
Visual & Motion Strategy
Collaborators:
Account Director:
Liz Brady, VML
Project Management:
Scarlett French, VML
Creative Director:
Kristen Beasley, VML
Design:
VML, Seattle
Production:
VML, Kansas City
Account Director:
Liz Brady, VML
Project Management:
Scarlett French, VML
Creative Director:
Kristen Beasley, VML
Design:
VML, Seattle
Production:
VML, Kansas City
Disciplines:
Creative Strategy
Design Direction
Art Direction
Motion Strategy
Presentation Design
Live Event Experience
Creative Strategy
Design Direction
Art Direction
Motion Strategy
Presentation Design
Live Event Experience
T-Mobile wanted advertisers to see it as something bigger than a wireless carrier. The NewFronts presentation needed to make that feel true — not just claim it, with a different speaker delivering a different piece of the story every few minutes.
The challenge
Approved direction: Impactful layering
T-Mobile Advertising Solutions used its dedicated session at IAB NewFronts 2025 to make the case that it's more than a carrier — expanding into retail media, first-party data partnerships, and a new advertising ecosystem built with Vistar Media and Blis. T-Mobile's own subject-matter experts should tell that story; the design challenge was different. A sequence of SMEs, each covering a different topic, still needed to feel like one T-Mobile story to an audience sitting fifty feet from the screen — without the visuals ever competing with the people delivering it.
The foundation
The foundation
The starting point was T-Mobile's evolving design system—specifically the new graphic language built around the T-Digit. Rather than default to magenta backgrounds and a logo behind every speaker, the goal was to make those core brand assets actually drive the storytelling and motion themselves.
The ideation
Before landing on a final direction, the team explored how far T-Mobile's new brand assets could be pushed as storytelling devices rather than static backdrops — testing depth, motion, and graphic scale before settling on the one system built to do the most work.The ideation
Approved direction: Impactful layering
The T-Digit became more than a logo element — a layered, dimensional device, almost like a portal, with imagery and information moving through different visual planes. That gave the presentation real depth and supported the strategic idea behind T-Mobile Advertising Solutions: a business built on connecting brands, data, media, and consumers. Rather than diagramming that relationship literally, the system let motion do the talking—establishing a motion grammar consistent enough that different teams and animators could build new moments without the presentation ever feeling disconnected.
WHAT I LED
• Development of three initial creative directions
• The recommendation to move forward with 'Impactful Layering'
• Transformation of the T-Digit from a static brand element into a dimensional storytelling device
• Direction of the design and motion framework across speakers, transitions, and content reveals
• Coordination with VML teams in Seattle and Kansas City throughout design and production
The experience
The selected creative approach became the foundation for a flexible visual and motion system that was synchronized with the SMEs’ presentations.
Transitions, content reveals, typography, imagery, and motion cues were designed to match the rhythm of each speaker’s narrative. Rather than serving as decoration, the visuals helped clarify complex ideas, reinforce key messages, and create a more engaging experience for the audience.
The outcome
The final presentation brought a diverse range of speakers and stories together through one cohesive, high-energy brand experience.
The work shown here follows the process from three initial visual mood boards through design and motion development, examples from the final presentation, and a compilation video capturing the experience at the event.
