NFL Draft
2023
Howl Motion partnered with Van Wagner to create an extensive motion graphics package for the 2023 NFL Draft in Kansas City. Hosted outside the iconic Union Station, the event featured the largest stage and video board setup in NFL Draft history at the time, giving us an incredible canvas to bring the league’s branding to life.
Our work included the iconic “On the Clock” and “The Pick Is In” animations, transition wipes, and large-scale branded animations that brought energy to the stage before, during, and after the event.
Designed for one of the biggest nights in football, the motion package helped create a cohesive visual experience across the massive stage displays throughout the three-day draft.
Motion Exploration
Starting with the NFL Draft’s key artwork, we redrew the football and surrounding brush strokes frame by frame, creating a looping, stop-motion-inspired animation that brought the original design to life.
Using the NFL Draft’s signature brush strokes and brick textures, we created a series of animated transition wipes for both the event’s main branding and individual NFL teams. By bringing these elements to life through motion, we built a cohesive set of transitions that carried the Draft’s visual identity throughout the show.
Designing Across The Stage
With one of the largest video board setups in NFL Draft history, we designed animations to flow seamlessly across the stage’s many screens. By carefully coordinating movement and transitions between individual displays, we created the illusion of one massive, continuous canvas, bringing the entire stage to life as a unified visual experience.
Taking The Branding Literally
The 2023 NFL Draft branding leaned into Kansas City's barbecue culture, incorporating butcher paper patterns and BBQ-inspired graphics throughout the event. We decided to take that theme a step further, creating a 3D barbecue sauce bottle animation featuring custom team-specific labels designed by the NFL.
Before landing on the sauce bottles, we explored a slightly more literal approach: a red-hot metal branding iron stamping NFL team logos into a slab of meat. A fun concept visually, but it didn't end up making the final cut. However, it was too fun an experiment not to share.
First Concept
Final Version
Project Details
Developed in partnership with Van Wagner for the 2023 NFL Draft in Kansas City, this motion design package brought the event’s bold visual identity to life across one of the largest stage and video board setups in Draft history.
We created an extensive collection of animations, including “On the Clock” and “The Pick Is In” graphics, transitions, and large-scale branded sequences. Building on the NFL’s existing artwork, we explored everything from hand-drawn, stop-motion-inspired animation to 3D elements that embraced Kansas City’s barbecue culture.
Designed to work across multiple screen sizes and configurations, the animations flowed seamlessly between displays, transforming the massive stage into one cohesive visual experience throughout the three-day event.
NFL Draft
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2023