The Walt Disney Company

Designed and launched the Freakier Friday homepage takeover on Disney.com.

  • Role UX and Motion Designer
  • Timeline 2 weeks
  • Results 16,000 clicks on the hero banner in 3 days

Why this mattered

Disney.com reaches 16M+ monthly active users and has been leaning into creative, interactive homepage takeovers to increase engagement with new movie releases.

Current Disney.com homepage experience with interactive hero takeovers
The current experience.

The ask

With Freakier Friday releasing soon, I had 2 weeks to turn a movie poster into an immersive homepage takeover for Disney.com.

Freakier Friday theatrical poster
Freakier Friday movie poster.

The problem

Very little information was provided about the film, leaving only the trailer, movie poster, and first movie, Freaky Friday, to work off of.

Finding the look

I moodboarded 3 directions, then picked the one closest to branding and look and feel for the movie.

Three moodboard directions: Mellow Macintosh Meltdown, Summer Scribbles and Screams, Glow Glam and Glitter
Final 3 moodboard styles.
Summer, Scribbles, and Screams direction alongside Disney Instagram stories
Landed on the edgy, scrapbook feeling.

Iterations

My first pass was safe, but I was challenged to get scrappier and think more outside of the scrapbook norm.

First takeover pass: torn paper background with a few stickers
Iteration 1.

Early designs didn’t feel right. So, I started over and took it to pen and paper.

Second pass: hand-drawn doodles covering the full banner
Pass 2. Hand-drawn doodles across the banner.
Third pass: the same doodles with purple and green color added
Pass 3. Doodles with color.

Making it move

Taught myself how to create animated gifs and use After Effects, collaborating with producers and designers.

Final animated takeover, desktop.

From there I scaled it to mobile and tablet, and designed the rest of the page with the provided assets.

What shipped

It went live August 8th, 2025 and drove 16,000 clicks on the hero banner in three days.

It was incredible to see the reactions of my friends and family around the world on their own phones.

Reflection

I was impressed by the design work that could be done in just two weeks, and how quickly it resonated with Disney fans around the world.