MSNBC – This Is Who We Are

Brand Identity Campaign

As part of MSNBC’s This Is Who We Are campaign, I was brought in to help visually articulate a deeply resonant message through a series of three animated brand identity spots. The creative director presented me with a moving voiceover from historian Jon Meacham and an original composition of “America the Beautiful” created by NBC New Marketing. The visual concept was a curated sequence of iconic black and white photographs, a foundation that held immense power and emotional weight. My job was to elevate it further.

The Collective 'We' - A More Perfect Union

Design Approach

While studying the imagery, I found inspiration in the rich contrast of positive and negative space. It immediately evoked the feeling of printmaking, etchings and relief prints that felt both timeless and handcrafted. I leaned into this visual language, digitally transforming each image in Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator to create stylized black and white illustrations. By painting, tracing, and abstracting the source material, I built a collection of high contrast vector style frames that slowly revealed the imagery beneath, with light and shadow acting as storytellers.

Motion & Narrative

The MSNBC brand team had often used the American flag as a thematic and symbolic thread, and they loved the idea of connecting scenes through this motif. I chose to incorporate a flowing ribbon as a representation of the flag, using only its red stripe to stand out against the grayscale world I had created.

To bring the ribbon to life, I used Cinema 4D’s dynamic tools to simulate natural, expressive movement. I applied cel shaders to maintain the clean, graphic aesthetic of the illustrated images. Using Cineware allowed me to seamlessly integrate the ribbon into After Effects while preserving precise control over depth and camera movements.

To enhance dimensionality, I separated elements within each image into different Z-space layers, creating a parallax effect that allowed the ribbon to weave naturally through the scenes, guiding the eye and connecting the narrative. At the climax of the piece, the ribbon elegantly wrote the word WE, tying the visual story back to the campaign’s core message: This is who we are.