Creative Director. Visual Strategist. Educator.

DARRELL
Allen

18+ years building the organizations, teams, and systems that shape how the world's biggest stories are told, across broadcast, digital, brand, and emerging platforms.

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Portfolio

SELECTED
Works

Lethal Restraint
Investigative / Visual Storytelling
VISUAL STORYTELLING
Creative direction for AP's multi-platform investigation into police use of force across the United States.
Investigative / Visual Storytelling
VISUAL STORYTELLING
Election Night
Data Visualization / Live Coverage
ELECTION NIGHT
Interactive Journalism, AP
Interactive Journalism / Data Visualization
INTERACTIVE DATA VISUALIZATION
Car Energy · Olympics Hometown Heroes · Wildfire Tracker · U.S. News Interactives
Interactive / Data Visualization
INTERACTIVE DATA VISUALIZATION
Brand & Experience Design
Brand / Experience / Corporate
BRAND & EXPERIENCE DESIGN
AP Content Studio
Platform / Branded Content
AP CONTENT STUDIO
Breakthrough Entertainers
Entertainment / Broadcast
BREAKTHROUGH ENTERTAINERS
Motion Graphics
Motion / Brand / Sports
MOTION GRAPHICS
Leadership

EXECUTIVE
Capabilities

I build creative organizations that perform at the highest level, across news, brand, product, entertainment, and everything in between. My work lives at the intersection of visual strategy, organizational leadership, and business impact. The industry changes. The principles don't.

For 18+ years I have been the person organizations turn to when they need to transform how they communicate visually at scale. I have built teams from scratch, redesigned workflows, launched products, grown revenue, and developed the kind of creative culture where talented people do their best work and stay. That combination is rare. It is what I bring to every role.

I am equally comfortable in a boardroom presenting to a CEO, in a studio reviewing motion graphics with a director, or in a classroom mentoring a student on their first broadcast reel. My range across journalism, broadcast, brand, interactive product, OTT, and academia gives me a perspective that most creative leaders simply do not have. I do not just understand the work. I understand the business, the people, and the systems that make the work possible.

Creative Direction
Visual strategy, brand systems, cross-platform leadership
Motion & Broadcast Design
Motion graphics, animation, live broadcast, OTT
Team Building & Mentorship
Hiring, scaling creative orgs, career development, teaching
Interactive & Product Design
UX, data visualization, digital storytelling, platform design
Brand Strategy
Identity, positioning, design systems, cross-platform consistency
Organizational Leadership
Executive alignment, budget ownership, transformation at scale
18+
Years of Executive
Creative Leadership
25+
Creatives Built,
Led & Mentored
300+
Global Broadcast
& Brand Clients
100M+
Audience Reached
on a Single Project
Case Studies

IMPACT &
Process

01
Organizational Transformation / AP
FROM TEXT TO VISUAL-FIRST NEWSROOM
Spearheaded AP's shift from a text-led organization to a visually driven newsroom, embedding design, motion, and data storytelling directly into editorial workflows across every vertical. Built and scaled a multidisciplinary team of 25+ creatives and established design systems that brought consistency across broadcast, digital, social, and client platforms at global scale.
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Centralized Creative Visual Strategy Hub diagram

THE STRATEGY

The Creative Visual Strategy Hub placed one multidisciplinary team at the center of every major story, product, and partner initiative across AP. Rather than siloed design functions, this model embedded visual thinking into editorial, product, marketing, and client workflows simultaneously.

The result: a 25+ person team serving 170+ countries across broadcast, digital, social, and OTT platforms — with shared design systems that scaled output without sacrificing consistency.

02
Product Innovation / Revenue Growth
GROWING GRAPHICSBANK FROM $3M TO $7M
Took creative and strategic ownership of AP's GraphicsBank, a B2B product serving 300+ broadcast and digital clients. Introduced sports logos as a key product offering, expanded into a combined graphics-plus-photo product giving customers access to AP Images, and grew annual revenue from $3M to $7M through product innovation, customer adoption strategy, and expanded offerings.
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Click to enlarge
GraphicsBank growth story GRAPHICSBANK $3M → $7M Revenue Growth $3M $7M Strategy-driven growth across 4 pillars 01 Platform 02 Product 03 Market 04 Promotion Modernize from photo-only to full multimedia platform Add video, animations & build-your-own tools Sports logos, AP Images bundle, animated graphics Beyond static PNG — full format expansion Expand beyond US-only customers to international broadcasters across every region Reposition from secondary add-on to flagship product NAB/IBC, modern showreels & demos Outcome High-revenue, low-cost B2B product repositioned as a multimedia platform — $6.5M in 2023 revenue Key insight: stopped treating GraphicsBank as a photo product. Benchmarked competitors, listened to broadcast experts, invested boldly.

THE STRATEGY

GraphicsBank was generating strong revenue with low costs, but declining. The platform hadn't been invested in for over a decade, product offerings were limited to static PNGs, and the entire strategy was US-focused while international markets went untapped.

By repositioning it as a multimedia product, introducing sports logos, bundling AP Images, and making the case for platform investment, the product grew from $3M to $7M in annual revenue, with $6.5M recorded in 2023.

03
Team Building / Organizational Leadership
BUILDING A WORLD-CLASS CREATIVE ORGANIZATION
Built and scaled AP's global creative team from the ground up, structuring four disciplines, embedding creatives directly into editorial and product workflows, and developing the talent pipeline, culture, and systems that allowed a 25+ person team to serve 170+ countries across every platform and format.
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THE STRATEGY

The goal wasn't just to hire creatives. It was to build an organization with a point of view. That meant structuring four disciplines around how AP actually works, embedding design thinking into editorial and product decisions, and creating a culture where visual strategy had a seat at every table.

Every hire was intentional. Every workflow redesigned. The result is a team that can move from breaking news to long-form investigation to branded content to live election coverage, without missing a beat.

25+
Creatives Led
Globally
4
Disciplines
Built & Structured
18+
Years Building
the Organization
170+
Countries Reached
by Team's Output
Organizational Architecture
Creative team organizational architecture OUTPUT 170+ countries · Every platform · Every format SYSTEMS & STANDARDS Design systems · Workflows · Editorial integration DISCIPLINES Design Visual · UX Brand Motion Broadcast Social Interactive Data Journalism Video Editorial Revenue TALENT & CULTURE Hiring · Mentorship · Career development STRATEGIC VISION Visual-first · Design at the table · Scale with quality
04
Award-Winning Journalism / Storytelling
VISUAL JOURNALISM THAT WINS AWARDS AND SHAPES POLICY
Led creative direction on projects including Lethal Restraint (Pulitzer Prize finalist), Adrift, and The Protein Problems, recognized with James Beard, Overseas Press Club, Webby, Edward R. Murrow, and Emmy nominations. These projects defined AP's approach to immersive visual storytelling and demonstrated that rigorous journalism and extraordinary design are not in tension, they amplify each other.
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THE IMPACT

These weren't just award-winning projects. They changed things. Lethal Restraint led to legislative reviews of police use-of-force policies. The Protein Problem reshaped how consumers understood industrial farming. Adrift prompted international conversations on plastic pollution.

6+
Major Awards
& Nominations
4+
Investigations
Directed
1+
Pulitzer Prize
Finalist
5+
Orgs Recognized
Across Fields
Recognition & Awards
2024
Pulitzer Prize Finalist
Lethal Restraint, Public Interest
2024
Webby Award
Best News & Politics Site
2023
Edward R. Murrow Award
Excellence in Innovation
2022
James Beard Foundation Award
The Protein Problem, Journalism
2022
Overseas Press Club
Adrift, Environmental Reporting
2021
Emmy Nomination
Outstanding Digital Innovation
About

"I don't just build beautiful work. I build the organizations, systems, and people that make it possible at scale."

I'm Darrell Allen, a creative director, visual strategist, educator, and problem solver with 18+ years of experience shaping how the world's most trusted news organization tells its stories. By day I lead global visual strategy at The Associated Press. By evening I'm in a classroom, teaching the next generation of designers how to do what I do. I wouldn't have it any other way.

I came up through broadcast at ABC, CBS, CNBC, FOX News, and BET, learning how to make things beautiful under impossible deadlines, in real time, with no margin for error. That foundation never left me. It's why I stay calm when everyone else is panicking. It's why I can make a decision at 11pm on election night with 100 million people watching and trust that it's the right one.

At the AP I've led the shift from a text-first newsroom to a visually driven one, built a 25+ person multidisciplinary creative team from the ground up, grown a B2B product from $3M to $7M in revenue, and directed award-winning investigations recognized by the Pulitzer board, the James Beard Foundation, the Overseas Press Club, and more. But the work I'm most proud of isn't on any project page. It's the designers, editors, and producers I've developed along the way who are now leading their own teams.

I teach adjunct courses in motion graphics, broadcast design, website design, video production, 3D animation, gaming, and product design. Not because I have to. Because I believe deeply in passing it on. The best leaders I've had in my career made time for me. I try to do the same.

I'm a learner as much as I am a leader. I stay curious. I collaborate without ego. I solve problems before they become fires. And I've found that the most powerful thing you can bring into any room, whether it's a boardroom, a newsroom, or a classroom, is the ability to listen well, think clearly, and act with conviction. That's what I bring every day.

Contact

LET'S
Talk

I'm open to what's next. If you're building something that needs a creative leader who can shape the vision, build the team, and deliver the work at scale, let's talk. I'm interested in senior creative leadership roles across media, entertainment, technology, brand, and beyond.

dallen78@gmail.com
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