In 2024, Smart Spaces were the principal sponsors for Space UK at the London Stadium, giving them access to a variety of screens both inside and outside the venue. The screens were unusually wide and came in many different sizes, from the advertising boards around the pitch at an enormous 21360 x 72px, to interior screens at 1752 x 528px, 1856 x 64px, 3520 x 64px, and 5328 x 912px.

The project involved careful planning to make sure messaging worked across all screens without overlapping or starting animations in the wrong place. Each screen often displayed different content, so aligning graphics while maintaining clear messaging was a key challenge.

I began by creating Illustrator files for each of the different sized screens we had, and began with the main screen outside the venue, as that was the headline screen. I began working on ideas for the screen, taking into account poles, physical constraints, and the viewing angles from different parts of the stadium. The idea below was eventually rejected, but it shows how we were looking at the stadium to see what it looked like and how we could use it in tandem with our work.

To make sure the animations would be effective in real life, I gathered references of other stadium content and even visited the venue to see how the screens looked in person and how content read from different perspectives.Many examples play around with the gaps between the supports on the screens

How we used the gaps between the poles for our work

With multiple videos required for each screen, the project grew in scale quickly, and took a lot of work to deliver. We built some new videos for the event but also relied on some of our existing videos, resizing them to the various screen sizes supplied to make them work around the stadium.

The end result was a set of animations that looked fantastic in situ, delivering clear, impactful messaging both inside and outside the stadium. Many of the assets are still being used long after the event, showing the lasting value of a carefully considered multi-screen approach. It was a fantastic experience for me personally to have my videos shown on such a well-known and prominent football venue and I was delighted to have the opportunity to work on this project.