Design
Art Direction
NFL
5 min read
•
Published Jul 29, 2026
Know your brand, know your team: how to deliver 100+ Super Bowl assets in seven days.
Donny Brock
Previously Creative Manager, Seattle Seahawks
•
Starbucks (Current Org)
01
The Project
When the Seattle Seahawks confirmed their Super Bowl LIX berth, Donny Brock and her team had one week to build a creative campaign from the ground up. A completely separate identity, not a playoff extension or a refresh of what already existed. This moment called for something entirely its own.
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 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.
The scope was significant. Roughly 100 distinct deliverables spanning social, digital, in-stadium, parade assets, and agency production, all completed before the team boarded a flight. The core creative team was five people: Donny, her creative director, two designers, and an intern. They also brought in freelancers and coordinated with an external agency and the social team, all simultaneously.
Hear Donny describe the importance of collaboration
CORE TEAM
6 People (Creative Director, Marketing Design Manager, Marketing Design Coordinator, Social Media Design Manager, Intern)
BIGGEST CONSTRAINT
There’s no real early start in this scenario. The moment it’s confirmed, you’re already in it.
DELIVERABLES
Roughly 100 distinct assets across social, digital, print, and parade
TIMELINE
About 7 days from confirmation to departure
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 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.
T
Tori
How important was the Seahawks' investment in creative to what you were all able to put out?
D
Donny
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 had to advocate for the vision and show up with enough conviction that it was worth the investment.
T
Tori
How do you bring everyone onto the same page when everything is moving that fast?
D
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.
Once the narrative was locked, Donny moved to the style guide. This is where five seasons of brand immersion paid off. She hit a flow state and pulled together the entire season's visual language from draft through playoff, and consolidated it into one cohesive guide…in two hours. Her director approved it quickly and the execution began.
While she was building the style guide, she was also briefing the freelancer creating 3D assets and 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."
Donny Brock
Two workstreams ran in parallel the entire week:
1
Social and digital look & feel by Donny
Countdown content, game-day graphics, real-time social assets, and the full digital suite.
2
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.
1
Social and digital, led by Donny
Countdown content, game-day graphics, real-time social assets, and the full digital suite. Donny owned this end and managed the external agency producing assets the internal team couldn't get to.
2
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 at the same time as digital. They couldn't afford to wait and see if
they'd need it.
3
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.
Seattle Seahawks · Super Bowl LIX campaign · Creative by Donny Brock & team
T
Tori
How important was the Seahawks' investment in creative to what you were all able to put out?
D
Donny
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 had to advocate for the vision and show up with enough conviction that it was worth the investment.
T
Tori
How important was the Seahawks' investment in creative to what you were all able to put out?
D
Donny
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 had to advocate for the vision and show up with enough conviction that it was worth the investment.
03
The Outcome
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
2 hrs
To build the full campaign style guide
4M+
Total engagements across social channels
T
Tori
How important was the Seahawks' investment in creative to what you were all able to put out?
D
Donny
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 had to advocate for the vision and show up with enough conviction that it was worth the investment.
T
Tori
What did you learn about yourself as a leader, and why do you think you were ready for this moment?
D
Donny
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
01
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.
02
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.
03
You have to advocate for the vision. No one is going to hand it to you.
What Donny has learned is how to see it and go after it. That means being passionate about the craft, advocating for ideas worth pushing further, and trusting that organizations with real investment in creative will respond when you show up with something worth responding to.
01
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 the habit of building strategy before touching a design file: kickoffs with data teams, 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.
02
Build the relationships before you need them.
Donny describes herself as a seed planter. She builds 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.
03
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.
Beyond the Highlights
Know a woman in sports with a story to share?
If you're a woman working in sports — or you know one — who has a real project story to tell, we want to hear about it. The planning, the pivots, the constraints, and what came out the other side. That's what Beyond the Highlight is built for.
Women working in sports or adjacent industries at any career stage
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