Next-Generation CTV Ad Formats
UI/UX for DIRECTV’s advertising innovation team, including pause ads, interactive overlays, and branded content experiences for Fortune 500 advertisers.
Ben Smith — Senior Designer
Interfaces for the screens people live with.
I’m a senior designer with 20+ years turning strategy into visual systems across CTV advertising, brand identity, motion, and web. Today I design next-generation ad formats (pause ads, interactive overlays, and branded content) for DIRECTV’s advertising innovation team.
- Currently
- Advertising UX Designer, DIRECTV (via Orion Innovation)
- Experience
- 20+ years, since 2005
- Based in
- Bulverde, Texas
Central TimeCentral Time - Open to
- Senior and lead design roles, plus select freelance projects.
Selected work
Case studies
Covers are illustrations of each medium, not screenshots of the shipped product.
Pause Ads Motion System
The animation design language and motion principles for Pause Ads, which appear when a viewer pauses what they're watching.
In-Vehicle Advertising Platform
Design for a first-generation advertising platform on connected-car displays, where the audience's attention legitimately belongs to the road.
Multi-Building Campus Wayfinding
A wayfinding and visual system for a large multi-building church campus serving thousands of people every week.
This Site, Built with Claude Code
How I rebuilt this portfolio with Claude Code, an AI-augmented workflow that ran from audit to design system, tests, and deploy.
Experience
Two decades, three chapters
2014–Present
Advertising UX Designer
DIRECTV (via Orion Innovation)
Next-generation CTV ad formats for DIRECTV’s advertising innovation team, including pause ads, interactive overlays, and branded content experiences for Fortune 500 clients.
- Design UI/UX for next-generation CTV ad formats, including pause ads, interactive overlays, and branded content experiences for Fortune 500 clients.
- Drive end-to-end creative execution from brief to production-ready specs, concepting and prototyping in Figma and collaborating with product managers and engineers to ensure pixel-accurate implementation.
- Translate complex advertiser requirements and brand guidelines into visually compelling, technically feasible ad experiences across streaming and digital platforms.
- Partner with product, engineering, and sales teams to advocate for design quality and consistency throughout the full product lifecycle.
- Contribute ideation and UX thinking to emerging ad-format research, applying systems-level design thinking to scalable new format development.
2014–Present
Freelance Designer and Creative Technologist
Hello, Ben Smith
Brand identities, design systems, and web experiences for small businesses and nonprofits, built with modern JavaScript tooling and AI-augmented workflows.
- Currently managing three WordPress site redesigns for a nonprofit client, overseeing information architecture, visual design, and implementation across interconnected web properties.
- Build brand identities, design systems, and digital experiences for small businesses from initial strategy through final delivery, maintaining full project ownership throughout.
- Leverage AI tools including Claude Code to accelerate ideation, prototype interactive concepts, and explore generative workflows, integrating emerging technology into a production-ready creative process.
- Develop full-stack web projects using SvelteKit, Bun, and Vercel, building functional prototypes and side projects that bridge design thinking with modern JavaScript development.
2005–2013
Multimedia Designer
Community Bible Church
Full-cycle multimedia production and visual identity for a large multi-campus organization.
- Executed full-cycle multimedia production, concepting, scripting, shooting, editing, and delivering video and motion content for weekly services and events.
- Designed comprehensive visual identity systems including logos, environmental graphics, signage, and campaign materials across print, digital, and large-format production.
- Created motion graphics and animated assets in After Effects for broadcast, sermon series branding, and live event environments.
- Collaborated with ministry leaders to translate strategic messaging into clear, engaging visual narratives.
- Managed simultaneous design requests across multiple departments, maintaining visual consistency and brand standards organization-wide.
About
Clarity at a distance
Most of my career has been spent designing for screens that are hard to design for: read from across a room, glanced at from a driver’s seat, or navigated with nothing but a remote.
That work taught me to translate complex requirements into visual systems that are simple to use and durable in production. I care about typography, motion that means something, and the details that make an interface feel considered. Before television I spent nearly a decade in full-cycle multimedia production: scripting, shooting, editing, and animating.
Since 2014 I’ve also worked independently as a designer and creative technologist, building brand systems and web experiences with SvelteKit and Vercel, and using AI tools like Claude Code to prototype and ship faster. This site is one of those projects.
Skills
- Advertising UX Design
- Visual Identity and Brand Systems
- Motion Design and Animation
- Design Systems and Scalability
- Cross-Functional Collaboration
- Video Production and Post
- Typography and Layout
- End-to-End Project Ownership
- AI-Augmented Creative Workflows
Design & motion
Figma · Photoshop · Illustrator · InDesign · After Effects · Premiere Pro
Web
HTML · CSS · SvelteKit · Bun · Vercel · WordPress · Divi
AI
Claude Code · Generative AI tools
Education
B.A., Communications, University of Texas at San Antonio (2010)
Contact
Hiring, or have a project in mind?
Email is the fastest way to reach me.