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 more than a wireless carrier. Its NewFronts presentation had to make that case, with a different speaker taking a different piece of the story every few minutes.
The challenge
Approved direction: Impactful layering
The T-Digit became a layered, dimensional device, almost like a portal, with imagery and information moving through different visual planes. That depth supported the idea behind T-Mobile Advertising Solutions: a business that connects brands, data, media and consumers. Instead of diagramming that relationship, we let the motion show it, with consistent motion rules so different teams and animators could build new moments that still felt connected.
At IAB NewFronts 2025, T-Mobile Advertising Solutions used its session to show it's more than a carrier, with retail media, first-party data partnerships and a new advertising ecosystem built with Vistar Media and Blis. T-Mobile's own subject-matter experts told that story. The design challenge was making a series of speakers, each on a different topic, feel like one T-Mobile story to an audience fifty feet from the screen, without the visuals ever competing with the people on stage.
The foundation
The foundation
The starting point was T-Mobile's evolving design system, especially the new graphic language built around the T-Digit. Instead of defaulting to magenta backgrounds and a logo behind every speaker, we wanted those brand assets to drive the storytelling and motion.
The ideation
We explored three directions to see how far the new brand assets could be pushed as storytelling devices, testing depth, motion and graphic scale.The ideation
Approved direction: Impactful layering
The T-Digit became a layered, dimensional device, almost like a portal, with imagery and information moving through different visual planes. That depth supported the idea behind T-Mobile Advertising Solutions: a business that connects brands, data, media and consumers. Instead of diagramming that relationship, we let the motion show it, with consistent motion rules so different teams and animators could build new moments that still felt connected.
WHAT I LED
• Three initial creative directions
• The recommendation to move forward with 'Impactful Layering'
• The T-Digit's shift from static brand element to dimensional storytelling device
• The design and motion framework across speakers, transitions and content reveals
• Coordination with VML teams in Seattle and Kansas City through design and production
The experience
The selected direction became a flexible visual and motion system synced to each speaker. Transitions, content reveals, typography, imagery and motion cues were timed to the rhythm of each talk, so the visuals helped explain the ideas on stage.
The outcome
The presentation brought a wide range of speakers and topics together as one T-Mobile story.
The work shown here follows the process from three initial mood boards through design and motion development, examples from the final presentation and a video from the event.
