In 2018, I was invited by the organizers of TEDx Asbury Park to create the show opener and motion graphics package for their live event. The theme that year was “Passion,” exploring how personal drive shapes creativity, careers, and community.
Working within the visual language of TED / TEDx, the event already had a simple graphic identity: a hand-drawn heart with an arrow and a profile silhouette, paired with the word Passion. Rather than introduce new elements, I built the animation system by deconstructing and reassembling those existing pieces.
The silhouette, heart icon, and typography were broken apart, repeated, and transformed throughout the sequence to create rhythm and motion. These graphic fragments became the structure for the animation.
To bring the theme to life visually, I filled those shapes with bold color bands and photographic textures—images representing a wide range of creative and professional pursuits. The result was a fast, graphic sequence that suggested the many different ways passion can manifest across people and communities.
I also selected the music for the opener, choosing a driving percussion track with a heartbeat-like rhythm. The animation was edited and timed to that pulse, giving the piece an underlying energy that builds into the start of the live presentations.
The final sequence introduced the event’s theme while establishing a dynamic visual language used throughout the show.
