WHO THE F IS BRIAN HUNTINGTON

Connecting Brands with their Fans in the Digital Age

Sparing you the full epic saga of my life, professionally I work in the online space. And specifically for the last 10 years I worked for Skybound Entertainment, home of Robert Kirkman and THE WALKING DEAD. I started when there were maybe 4 or 5 employees. I was hired to launch TheWalkingDead.com and to run pretty much all aspects of Skybound’s online presence, from creating social accounts to the web sites. At first, I was doing this by myself, determining voice, coverage, branding, etc. Eventually I put together a small team and developed a great collaborative environment while working with partners like AMC, HBO/CINEMAX, DIAGEO, and more. During the pandemic my responsibilities expanded to include digital programming where I ran our virtual conventions, coming up with panels, reaching out to talent, and working with sponsors, in-house producers, and hosts. My job covered so much during my decade at Skybound it’s hard to encapsulate. Oh I also do motion graphics on the side and was once hired by Warner Bros to work on a live-action AKIRA pitch.

Social

At Skybound I took over the @Skybound twitter handle, acquired @TheWalkingDead, created @InvincibleHQ, and created and ran a bunch of others. I also launched @SkyboundEnt on Instagram and acquired @TheWalkingDead. I created accounts on Line, TikTok, etc—pretty much any social platform that happened to show up between 2013 and 2022. For my first two years it was exclusively me posting and creating all content for these accounts. I love visuals, graphic design, and the challenge of managing different voices for different accounts.

Community

I helped create the “Skybound Insiders” loyalty program and ran that during my time at Skybound. Primarily it was a means to funnel users into our email system (I also managed that CRM and wrote and designed our emails for many years) through our gaming partners. The objectives and aspects of the program changed over time but my favorite part was our private Facebook group where I could interact with our hardcore community on a daily basis. Getting to know who the biggest fans were and using them for feedback or rewarding them and acknowledging them was great.

I hosted multiple annual Skybound Insider meetups at San Diego Comic-Con, where we’d give away merch, show off upcoming projects, bring in special guests (Robert Kirkman, cast from THE WALKING DEAD), and just have fun with our fans in a really relaxed, genuine way.

The Web

As mentioned, my first task at Skybound was launching TheWalkingDead.com and just acquiring that domain is a story in and of itself. I ran Skybound.com (all copy and graphics), switching CMS platforms from SquareSpace to WordPress. In fact, I shepherded Skybound.com through multiple iterations—including ingesting TheWalkingDead.com while successfully maintaining our SEO positioning. Through that process and in working with our consultants, I’ve learned more about SEO than I ever thought possible, from URL taxonomy to CSS tags.

I managed a portfolio of around 300 domain names across a handful of registrars and would often work with partners to swap URLs, brainstorm new ones, and try to future-proof our IP.

I designed and launched THIS page you’re on in about a week, including the motion graphics. I like doing small-scale projects on my own, but really love working with actual designers and coders on bigger projects.

Your Future Expert

I love learning new things. College was great—learned some cool things getting my Marketing degree—but most of my job skills are self-taught. From FTP and HTML coding to Photoshop to After Effects to social trends and copywriting, I picked all this up because I enjoyed the challenge. Computers and software have always been second nature to me (thanks for getting that Intel 486 with the 14.4k modem back in 1992, Mom). When I see something cool I love challenging myself to see if I can achieve the same thing.

My Philosophy

Authenticity

Your customers and fans can smell bullshit from a mile away and will amplify it if given a chance. As they should. I've found being open and proactive with your audience always yields the best long-term results.

DIY

I have a hard time asking anyone I work with or that works for me to do something I can't do myself. I mentioned that I love learning new tools and understanding how everything operates really leads to the best overall direction and most efficient workflow.

Reciprocity

In a social media environment, recognizing the fans that support you and spread your message is paramount. Engage with them 1:1, elevate and spotlight them where you can, and let them know they're appreciated, because at the end of the day, you're not making anything without them.

Never Sacrifice Quality

Even when there were maybe 5 of us at Skybound, we ALWAYS put out work that looked like it had teams of people behind it. Present yourself as the brand you want to be.

Trust the Team

Social Media lives and dies in the blink of an eye, especially platforms like Twitter. Empower and trust your team to make real-time decisions and work with them to understand the boundaries of that responsibility. It might take some time to build that trust but you have to put in the work. Or hire me to put in that work.

Have Fun

I had a boss that used to say, ``We're not brain surgeons, if we mess up no one dies.`` Everyone should be putting out their best work but if we're not having fun and enjoying what we do, what is even the point? Unless you ARE a brain surgeon in which case, please do not mess up.

My Motion Graphics Work

Logo design and animation for Patrick Schumacker and Justin Halpern’s production company, used as their vanity card at the end of episodes of HARLEY QUINN and ABBOTT ELEMENTARY.


Another production vanity card. Scott Gimple (executive producer, THE WALKING DEAD) had a rough sketch of what he wanted it to look like. The top version was used for TWD season 5 (2014), and the bottom was an updated version for season 6 (2015). For the bottom one, he asked that the logo be inside some type of handheld game and had an art asset from a friend for me to include in the design.

In looking to create interesting, shareable assets for Skybound’s comic book OBLIVION SONG, I decided to try animating the preview pages we would put out each month. I would do this as both a 16:9 Twitter asset and a 9:16 Instagram Story asset that would mimic the actual preview page layout. Click through to see both.



When Skybound Books became the official publisher of Simon Ståhlenhag’s THE ELECTRIC STATE, we wanted to come up with some interesting ways of showing it off. I had the idea to create an Instagram account that would look like a feed of videos pulled off of the robot/drone in the series, Skip. I went through the book and found images that could be from the POV of Skip and added as much life and motion to them as possible. The feed starts with a command terminal I created based on the corporation in the book. As a fan of Simon’s it was awesome getting to work with these images and showing them off to him. Click through to see the images before motion as well.

An unused asset from the launch campaign for THE CALLISTO PROTOCOL. The games team asked for a postcard-style image they could use on social. Pretty much all we had were a few key art environmental images and of course I had to animate it as well. This was on quick turnaround (one evening) and ultimately the publisher didn’t use it, but I really like how it turned out.

Get in Touch!

QUESTIONS? WANT TO TALK ABOUT COMICS OR ANIME OR TRASHY REALITY TV OR THAT OLD FAMILY COMPUTER?

Email Me!