YML Studios — Agency Studio
Building a Studio Team
The Challenge
When I joined YML (now Code and Theory), the studio team was just beginning to take shape. As the first member of what would become YML Studios, I helped lay the creative foundation for an internal production team designed to support both client work and the agency's evolving brand presence.
Over the next few years, I helped grow the studio into a multidisciplinary team of 10 producing photography, film, design, illustration, motion, 3D, and sound-driven content across the agency. The work played a meaningful role in strengthening YML's industry presence during a period of major growth and recognition, contributing to awards from Fast Company, Webby, Time 100, W3, Awwwards, and AdAge's Customer Experience Agency of the Year in 2022.
My Role
- —First creative hire and founding member of YML Studios
- —Helped grow the team from one to ten across disciplines
- —Led production spanning photography, film, motion, 3D, illustration, and sound
- —Directed brand films and developed the agency's visual identity language
- —Collaborated with leadership on agency voice, editorial, and thought leadership
- —Built scalable content systems to support a constant flow of new ideas
01 — Agency Brand Identity
YML Studios became the creative engine behind how the agency presented itself to the world. The work we made wasn't just content — it was an ongoing effort to build a brand identity that felt genuinely true to the people inside it. Professional without being stiff, playful without losing credibility. An agency rooted in the culture and energy of Silicon Valley, where technology and creativity weren't in tension — they were the same thing.
That balance showed up across everything the studio touched: brand films, team photography, motion systems, editorial content, and event materials. Each piece worked to reflect the builders, designers, and thinkers who made YML what it was — and to signal that a tech-native agency could also be one with genuine creative ambition.
02 — Illustration System
With a high volume of articles being published each week across the agency's editorial platform, we needed a visual system that could keep pace without sacrificing quality. I worked closely with freelance illustrator Kevin Tudball to build a modular illustration system and library — a set of interchangeable assets designed to be combined into endless compositions, giving every piece of content a distinct but cohesive visual voice.
The system was built to scale. Rather than commissioning one-off illustrations, we created a flexible foundation the studio could draw from and expand over time — ensuring the agency's growing editorial output always had the creative support it needed.
What started as an editorial tool eventually grew into something more tangible. The illustration system expanded beyond the screen, ultimately becoming the basis for a series of custom puzzles we produced for YML's clients — turning the visual language we'd built into a physical, giftable expression of the studio's creative range.
Credits
Creative Director
Craig Kind
ACD
Jon Sontag
ACD
Saulo Jamariqueli
Senior Producer
Ana Moreno
Lead Art Director
Seth Roberts
Senior Content Designer
Marcus Thompson
Senior Content Designer
William Winston
Senior Motion Designer
Cris Weigandt
Senior Motion Designer
Chicoh Andrade
Senior Motion Designer
Bernardo Marinho
Illustrator
Kevin Tudball