Design, Art Direction, NFL
Jun 5, 2026
7 min read
Building a Super Bowl campaign from scratch in seven days.
Donny Brock
Creative Manager
Seattle Seahawks
01
The Project
When the Seattle Seahawks confirmed their Super Bowl LIX berth, Donny Brock had one week to build a creative campaign from the ground up. Not a playoff extension. Not a refresh of what already existed. Something entirely its own, because this moment called for it.
Donny had been with the Seahawks for five seasons, working her way from designing email headers and event posters to leading media day and owning the creative direction on the organization's biggest tentpole campaigns. All of that time, all of those relationships, all of that brand knowledge, came due in seven days.
TIMELINE
About 7 days from confirmation to departure
DELIVERABLES
Roughly 100 distinct assets across social, digital, print, and parade
CORE TEAM
5 people — Creative Manager, Creative Director, 2 designers, 1 intern
BIGGEST UNKNOWN
You don't know you're going until you know. The clock doesn't start until it's almost too late.
02
Strategy & Execution
The first decision Donny made wasn't a design decision. It was a communication decision. Before she opened a single file, she picked up the phone.
Her first call was to marketing — not to brief them, but to align on voice and narrative before anything visual existed. The goal was a cohesive story across every touchpoint. Once the narrative was locked, she moved to the style guide.
Tori: How do you bring everyone onto the same page when everything is moving that fast?
Donny: My first move was getting on the phone with marketing to align on voice, tone, and narrative — so the story would be cohesive across every touchpoint. It's very easy, when everyone is moving fast, for different departments to end up telling different stories. You see it when the caption messaging doesn't match the creative. So we had to get aligned first: Are we celebrating? Is it competitive energy? Quiet confidence? That conversation has to happen before anything goes into production.
Once the narrative was locked, Donny moved to the style guide. This is where five seasons of brand immersion paid off. She pulled together the entire season's visual language — from draft through playoffs — and consolidated it into one cohesive guide. Her director approved it quickly. Then everything had to happen at the same time.
While she was building the style guide, she was briefing the freelancer creating 3D assets. While that was in motion, she was connecting with the social team to understand what they'd need so she could build the Adobe library accordingly. The moment she had the green light, she went straight into production.
I knew we needed separate branding — not a continuation of the playoffs. Because it was bigger than playoffs. It was the Super Bowl.
Three workstreams ran in parallel the entire week:
Social and digital, led by Donny Countdown content, game-day graphics, real-time social assets, and the full digital suite. Donny owned this end of the work and managed the external agency producing assets the internal team couldn't get to.
Parade and championship assets, led by two designers and the creative director Win-scenario content including parade look and feel, championship graphics, and print. This workstream ran in parallel with digital. They couldn't afford to wait and see if they'd need it.
Project management — a first day on the job The Seahawks had hired a project manager two weeks before the Super Bowl. Her first assignment was tracking roughly 100 deliverables across five people. It worked.
Tori: How important was the Seahawks' investment in creative to what you were all able to put out?
Donny: Honestly, it comes down to the individual more than the role or the org. I always describe it as a sandbox — you can build a small sand dome or a giant castle. The space and creative freedom are there if you want them. But you have to want them. I remember telling my VP directly: I need more budget so I can push this further. He wrote it down. Nobody was going to hand that to me — I had to advocate for the vision and show up with enough conviction that it was worth the investment.
03
The Impact
The Seahawks won Super Bowl LIX. Everything was ready. Social metrics are still being compiled and will be added to this case study once submitted — but the numbers only tell part of the story.
~100
Deliverables completed before departure
5
People on the core creative team
2 hrs
To build the full campaign style guide
If a player tells me that was fire, that does more for me than 10,000 comments. I think about whether Jackson's mom is proud to share that post in her family group chat. I hope players see this work and feel celebrated.
Donny Brock
Tori: What did you learn about yourself as a leader, and why do you think you were ready for this moment?
Donny: I wanted us to give each other grace. I gave my team a small speech before we got into it: this is everyone's first Super Bowl. Even the people who were here for our last one 12 years ago — it's a completely different experience now. We're all doing this for the first time. So be understanding. We all have the same goal. Lock arms. Creatively, I learned just how deeply the Seahawks brand had become part of me. Someone could describe a visual to me with my eyes closed and I could tell you immediately if it was off-brand. I built the entire style guide in about two hours — and that's what happens when you're in flow state. You know the brand, the voice, the tone, you understand the moment, and you're thinking like a teammate instead of an individual contributor. Success at this level comes down to preparation and timing. You're ready for the moment when it meets you.
THREE THINGS TO CARRY FORWARD
Three things to carry forward:
Process is the method to the madness, and it's a blind spot in sports.
Donny came up through an agency before she ever worked in the NFL. That experience gave her something a lot of sports creatives don't have: the habit of building strategy before touching a design file. Kickoffs with data teams, conversations with copywriters, alignment on voice and narrative before anything visual exists. That's what lets you build a campaign that holds up seasons later, not just one that looks good this week.
Build the relationships before you need them.
Donny describes herself as a seed planter. She's building relationships with teammates, freelancers, and collaborators all year, not just when a deadline appears. That's what made it possible to assemble a Super Bowl-caliber production team in a matter of days. You cannot manufacture that kind of trust in the middle of a crisis.
You have to advocate for the vision. No one is going to hand it to you.
The Seahawks gave Donny a sandbox. But she had to decide what to build in it. That meant going to her VP and asking directly for more budget so she could push the work further. The organization's openness to creative is real, but it only activates for the people who show up with conviction and a track record to back it up.
CONNECT WITH
Donny Brock
Donny Brock is the Creative Manager for the Seattle Seahawks with 5 seasons in the organization. She leads creative direction on the team's biggest campaigns — from draft to championship. Before the NFL, she built her foundation in agency work and brought that process discipline with her.
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