RUSS SCHAFFER
ESPN
Digital Production Designer - 03/2024-09/2025
Production design and art direction for the Worldwide Leader in Sports while under an 18-month contract. Primary tasks were handling the production design for College Football and the National Hockey League while also designing for 16 other properties
College Football
Worked as the main production designer for the vast range of college football under ESPN's umbrella. Properties included the College Football Playoffs, SEC on ABC, CFB on ESPN, College Gameday, CFB on ESPN+ and the FCS Playoffs
A typical day could include producing the full digital slate of ads for that week's top games, working with brand partners, internal meetings and much more
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Below is a (very) small sampling of regular campaigns, which included creating assets for in-game features, social, CTV, email, banners, Good Morning America lower thirds and streaming services among a slew of other requests
National Hockey League
Lead production duties for the entirety of the 2024-25 NHL season including the Stanley Cup Playoffs and all specialty events. Responsible for sizing out the artwork for our full digital advertising scope as well as all partner requests
Typical campaigns could run anywhere from 10-30 assets and quick updates were regularly needed to stay up-to-date on the rapid fire pace of the hockey season
NCAA Athletics
Art direction and full-scale production design for various championship campaigns for the largest events in college athletics. These productions required meeting weekly with the production, marketing and design teams to evolve the artwork from conception to finish. End results included banners, CTV assets, social, email and partnerships
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The campaign below for the Women's Final Four required months of internal meetings and collaboration with the NCAA and partners to ensure all content was compliant with all parties. Duties included co-art direction and asset buildout
Women's College World Series
Three rounds of art direction produced this look for the 2025 Women's College World Series. Production was needed for all three rounds of the tournament featuring PSDs sent to our sister team in Seattle to be able to populate every potential matchup with just a few clicks. Also included were social, email, streaming watch page headers and a presentation deck for our internal team
NCAA Gymnastics Championship
Sole art direction for the duration of the 2025 Gymnastics Championship from the opening round through the title showdown. A similar palette of deliverables compared to what you see above
The Kingdom
The swan song campaign I worked on in my tenure was for this ESPN Original six-part documentary on the Kansas City Chiefs' dynasty. This production required 19 different projects all due within a four-week span.
The National Football League
The NFL comes with a gauntlet of assets needed throughout the season. I was called upon to help out with the Pro Bowl, the Simpsons takeover of Monday Night Football as well as assisting on banners for other properties
Miscellaneous Campaigns
The sprinting speed of the sports world means changes and changes means help is needed. Often we're called upon to help out another team member with a project, set of banner ads, a last-minute series of copy edits and endless more.
All of the sets below represent situations where I was given set of key art and instructed to resize them to what other specifications necessary. This included almost every sport within ESPN"s properties and a wide collection of digital assets
