Speaking at a big conference like Config was one of those opportunities that shifts how as a designer you see your own craft, definitely perspective changing. Our topic started off broad: how we design the proprietary animation tools behind Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studios. Twenty minutes to tell a story big enough to matter, yet tight enough to land.

The process turned out to mirror exactly what our artists go through every day: start with an idea, wrestle it into shape, test it, break it, rebuild it - over and over and over. For weeks, my FigJam board looked like a chaotic storyboard wall. I interviewed long-time Pixarians to dig up what makes our tools, and the people who use them, so special. I trawled our archives for hidden stories, my favorite was looking at archive documentaries from the 90s and learning about the breakthroughs that changed the way our artists work.

Once I had a story arc and some rough assets, I ran my own kind of braintrust (early screenings that we do for our movies for a gut check). I did daily show and tells: breakfast presentations, booked screening rooms to pitch to random colleagues, pulled in animators, designers, security guards, basically anyone who’d listen. Did the jokes land? Did the message make sense? Was anything confusing? And all the while, Disney’s legal and PR teams made sure every frame of it was good to go. My biggest learning was to ground it in something personal, what makes me excited to work here, and what I really want to share with the world.

A few months, countless revisions, and a lot of nerves later, we did it. And in the process, I got a tiny glimpse of what it feels like to craft something for the screen: the chaos, the curiosity, the constant change. The whole experience  It left me with a deeper respect for our artists, and a reminder that good design is just good storytelling in disguise.