I spent the day capturing the National Juneteenth Museum groundbreaking and Ms. Opal Lee's 100th birthday celebration, then closed it out at A Conversation with Michelle Obama in Fort Worth, Texas.
The creative challenge: the evening was fully off the record, with no photos and no video. Instead of skipping the biggest moment of the day, we built around it. A shot of the no-recording notice, captioned audio over the venue ceiling, and the words carry it: "You can walk into the doors of the White House. You can walk into the doors anywhere."
The rest is a two-act story told in Cimone's POV. Sunlit groundbreaking by day, gilded evening program by night. We used real sound throughout (the speeches and a whole crowd singing Happy Birthday to Ms. Opal) and no music bed, because history doesn't need a soundtrack.
This is what I love doing: putting creatives inside the moment, not just next to it.
It started in January. My partner and I were planning trips for March and May, and suddenly realised we’d forgotten a movie we wanted to watch and a new Korean place we wanted to try. Big plans: fine. Small ones: gone.
So I built us a shared space for all those “we should try this someday” ideas. You save them together, drag one onto a day, and it becomes an actual plan.
I made it on my own: product, design, the build with Lovable, the website and the blog - Framer. 60 builds, a few App Store rejections, and one timezone bug that sent us to squash at 2am instead of 2pm xD
And there are no photos inside, just Smooches characters. Because who calls their person by their actual name anyway? (or it's just me there, huh)
That furry hand holding the phone is a scroll-stopper. These characters would be so fun animated, even just a little wiggle when a wish turns into a plan. Huge congrats on the launch.
Contra Verified project: After Effects and Premiere Pro MOGRT templates for an AI data center.
Logo animation, animated map, lower thirds and stats auto-resize as you type, so the team can edit videos without a motion designer.