Renée Stevens is an award-winning art director and motion designer with 20+ years building visual systems, motion language, and design identities for editorial, video, and emerging media at scale.

She runs an independent art direction and motion design practice, taking projects from first concept through final execution for global brands, publishers, and creative teams, including Forbes, Google, DreamWorks Animation, Suave Kids, West Elm, and Minted. That range means she's just as comfortable defining a new visual system from scratch as she is scaling one across a large organization. Her 300+ motion-based Google Web Stories for Forbes reached millions daily and were featured in Google's global Web Stories launch.

Her work spans 2D and 3D with equal fluency, moving from a typographic motion system to a spatial 3D experience without losing the storytelling thread that makes both feel intentional. She's applied that fluency to solve open-ended problems from the ground up: launching tagAR, her own AR platform researching how augmented reality can support learners with dyslexia while helping everyone never forget a name again, and directing Pixels & Print, an annual 48-hour design workshop she founded that pairs 60+ students with nonprofit organizations to solve real creative problems under real constraints.

That same depth informs her work as an educator and leader. As Associate Professor and Chair of Visual Communications at Syracuse University's Newhouse School, she has spent more than a decade building curriculum around AR/XR, AI, and immersive media. Teaching, for her, has always been an extension of practice, a way of staying rigorous, staying curious, and staying connected to what the next generation of designers are making.

As a speaker, she has been invited to share her work around the world — including a TEDx talk at Syracuse University, SXSW, Sundance Film Festival (moderator), Beijing Normal University (keynote), and the U.S. Department of Defense — on the future of motion design, immersive media, and accessible storytelling. Watch her TEDx talk: Never Forget a Name Again.

She is the author of two published books, Powered by Design (Rocky Nook, 2020), named one of the Best Graphic Design Books of All Time by BookAuthority, and Designing Immersive 3D Experiences (Pearson, 2021), part of the Voices That Matter series, on designing spatial and interactive experiences for XR.

Stevens has been recognized nationally and internationally with 80+ awards including Graphis Gold, GDUSA Person to Watch 2022, GDUSA American Web Design Award, AEJMC Creative Research Award, 66+ Minted design awards, and the Laura J. and L. Douglas Meredith Professorship at Syracuse University, awarded to faculty who demonstrate extraordinary dedication to teaching and creative practice.

Currently available for contract and temporary art direction, motion design, and systems design engagements.

Adobe Certified Professional

SKILLS

Design Skills

Motion Design, Augmented Reality Design, 3D Animation, Gaussian Splatting, User Interface Design, User Experience Research, Data Visualization, Typography, Identity Design, System Design, Publication Design, Advertising, Project Management, Art Direction, Social Media Marketing, Digital Illustration, Storytelling, and AI-Assisted & Generative Product Design

Photography + Video Skills  

DSLR for video and stills, Audio Recording and Editing, Studio Lighting, Non-Linear Editing, Storyboarding, Still and Video Color Correction, Image Stabilization and Tracking, Post Production Retouching, Visual Effects, and Motion Graphics

Computer + Development Skills  

Design & Prototyping: Figma, FigJam, Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, After Effects, Premiere Pro
3D: After Effects, Cinema 4D, Blender
AI: Claude, ChatGPT, Midjourney, Adobe Firefly
Web: HTML5, CSS3, PHP, JavaScript
iOS: Xcode, Swift