Johnny Cupcakes

In July of 2024, Johnny Earle, head of the bakery themed street apparel shop and Boston staple, Johnny Cupcakes, reached out to me with the amazing opportunity to work with him and his design team as their motion designer and animator.

Providing media every week for their social media, email, and keynote talks, each production presented the unique challenge of conceptualizing and executing fun and unique animations with tight turnaround— print designs provided late Tuesday or Wednesday for their full animated premiere on Friday morning.

There’s no end to the variety, from cassette tape player rocket ships, to haunted ice cream pint cups, pumpkin spice pin ups, fire eating circus performers, kaiju and lil demons— I could go on.

Think like SNL, but for cool merch— complete with musical guests and collabs with groups like Weezer, Rise Records, and Suavecito Pomade.

In addition to the weekly posts and email blasts, there were special sets of animations that served as templates for music recommendations via Instagram’s music sharing, sporting both the album cover and spinning vinyl look, special oven vault releases, and the 13 Days of Halloween, where every day a new shirt was released for 13 days straight— 13 posts made of a template with 20 shirts, 4 different sets of animations, and 7 sets of color schemes— for a combined total of at least 364 different options for animations. Math is fun.