Springs Pickleball
A full brand animation for an indoor pickleball club, directed end to end. Identity, boards, animatic, CG animation, sound design, and delivery in three ratios for social, broadcast and in-venue screens.
Springs Pickleball is a local indoor club that needed to feel like a real brand, fast. I directed the whole arc myself: the identity work to pressure-test the mark, boards and an animatic to lock the story, CG animation in Cinema 4D and Redshift, original sound design in Logic, and finished delivery in three ratios for every screen the club touches. I presented the identity and the film directly to the club, the same way I would walk a national client through a launch.
Small client, complete process. The same discipline that runs a national product launch runs a five-second logo hit, and this project shows every step of it in one place.
Art direction, end to end
One brand animation, directed end to end
Springs is the cleanest single-artifact example of the job: take a local club from a logo file to a finished piece of motion that works on every screen they own.
Research & direction
Energy without the neon cliché
Pickleball branding splits into two bad defaults: country-club beige or radioactive neon. The direction pulled from the sport itself, the powder burst off a paddle hit, court-line geometry, that specific optic green against deep navy. Real reference from the actual facility kept it honest to the place.
Identity
The mark, pressure-tested first
Before anything moved, the identity had to hold still. Logo alternates, a type specimen and texture studies came first, because a brand animation is only as strong as the mark it resolves to.
Storyboards
Eight shots, no fat
The piece is short, so the boards had to earn every beat: ball drop, paddle strike, powder burst, court lines drawing themselves in light, type slam, logo resolve. Boarded with the crop logic for all three ratios planned from the start, not retrofitted.
Animatic
Timing locked before render
A five-second logo animation lives or dies on rhythm. The animatic locked the hit points against the sound sketch: strike, burst, settle, resolve. Once the timing read, production was execution, not exploration.
Animatic cut in Coveboard ↗, the AI-integrated pre-production and editing platform I designed and built.
Production
Viewport to final
Modeled and animated in Cinema 4D, rendered in Redshift. The ball's seam detail and the powder sim carry the energy; the working viewport shows how simple the scene really is before light and texture do their job.
Sound
Built in Logic, not bought
The sound design is original: recorded paddle and ball samples layered with synthesized elements, mixed so the logo lands on a real hit. Direction extended to the audio because the animation is only half the impact.
Delivery
Three ratios, every screen
Delivered as finished masters in 16:9, 1:1 and 9:16 for social, broadcast and the club's own in-venue screens, plus seamless loops for ambient use. Each ratio got its own composition pass, reframed shot by shot rather than center-cut from the wide master.