Christian Araya Gutiérrez

Digital Animator, Designer and Creative Director

WORK EXPERIENCE

Applaudo Studios (Client: Carnival)

Sr. Creative Designer, November 2025 – Present

Lead creative execution and art direction for digital marketing assets supporting Carnival, delivering high-impact visuals across web, video, and social platforms.

Design and repurpose hero videos, homepage banners, and animated assets aligned with brand standards, accessibility requirements, and performance goals.

Create responsive, ADA-compliant landing pages and UI components in Figma, ensuring usability, accessibility, and visual consistency.

Develop motion design and Lottie animations to enhance interactivity and elevate the user experience.

Adapt and scale pre-approved design systems into flexible, production-ready solutions.

Collaborate closely with marketing, product, and development teams to deliver polished, user-first digital content.

Apply strong expertise in typography, layout, visual hierarchy, and branding to maintain a cohesive visual language across campaigns.

Contribute strategic creative input while executing hands-on design across still and motion projects.

Publicis Global Delivery (PGD)

Sr. Creative Designer, June 2025 – October 2025

Creates and refines visual assets for multiple global brands, ensuring high-quality, brand-consistent deliverables.
Reviews, updates, and maintains design templates to align with evolving brand guidelines.
Manages projects from briefing to delivery, coordinating with cross-functional teams to meet deadlines.
Identifies and implements workflow improvements to increase efficiency and scalability.
Balances hands-on design execution with strategic input on creative operations and process optimization.

Prime Video & Amazon Studios

Sr. Visual Designer, February 2024 – June 2025

Lead global, cross-functional design initiatives, including digital campaigns and strategic creative projects for Prime Video Originals.

Managed video-centric marketing projects across platforms, ensuring brand and quality consistency.

Spearheaded SOP creation and visual standards to improve production workflows.

Directed and mentored designers, providing feedback through 1:1 coaching and training sessions.

Collaborated with producers and stakeholders to streamline project timelines and approvals.

Oversaw post-production workflows, motion graphics quality control, and campaign asset delivery.

Produced experimental visual content and motion graphics aligned with brand and audience goals.

UtilizeCore, February 2020 - March 2023

Working as a creative in the marketing and product departments, producing amazing and wonderful designs focused on the UI of the webpage and platform, also creating and researching for patterns which enhance the UX and provides a great usability supported by creative UI animations and illustrations.

Kreet Visuals, March 2019 - Present

Started Kreet Visuals as director and animator with 5 more friends, a digital animation studio focused on bringing high standards in aesthetics and design.

Amazon SJO, July 2019 - February 2020

Working on Selling Partner Support department giving assistance to sellers of the platforms of North America region.

Ingenious Grupo Estratégico, November 2019 - December 2019

Creative Director of a campaign for Comisión Nacional de Emergencias de Costa Rica, working in the production department creating scripts, storyboards, animating and editing the recorded footage.

Wenox Media, Otober2019 - November 2019

Motion graphic animator in a project for the Banana production Industry creating educational videos about safety procedures.

Tácticas Creativas BTL, April 2017 - October 2017

Worked in the design department doing graphic design and different kinds of animations for Nestlé, Nesquick, Ingrup, Cinepolis and Samsung. this work went for graphic artwork to complete design of stands and BTL activations for each brand.

Aura Club & Dancefloor, November 2014 - October 2016

Main designer for video mapping, visuals and lighting, also worked as flyer designer and event photographer.

Freelance Designer and Animator, 2015 - present

Vj, digital animator and creative producer dedicated to the design of scenarios, video mapping experiences, visuals and events, for clubs such as Aura Club and Dancefloor, DOPE, LIV, Xcape, Einstein, Frathouse, Bar La Cali, Belle, Rapsodia and private parties for Véritas University. In addition to artistic installations at the MADC and the French Alliance of Costa Rica.

EDUCATION

  • Licenciatura en Animación Digital: Universidad Véritas, graduate february 2020.

CREATIVE SKILLS

  • UI Animation

  • UI Design

  • Story Telling

  • Direction

  • 3D Generalist

  • 2D Motion Graphic Animation

  • 3D Motion Graphics Animation

  • 3D Character Animation

  • 3D Character Rigging

  • 3D texture Painting

  • 3D Modeling (Box modeling and Sculpting)

  • Illustration

  • Storyboarding

  • Look development

  • Lightning and Rendering

  • Photo and Video Editing

  • Compositing

  • Integration and Tracking (Video and 3D/2D content Integration)

  • Visual Especial Effects

PROFESSIONAL SKILLS

  • Figma

  • Lottie

  • Rive

  • Spline

  • Bodymotion (AE)

  • Spark AR

  • Autodesk Maya

  • Adobe Photoshop

  • Adobe Illustrator

  • Adobe After Effects

  • Adobe Lightroom

  • Adobe Premiere Pro

  • Quixel Suite

  • Resolume Arena

  • Pixologic Zbrush

  • Substance Painter

  • The Foundry Mari

  • The Foundry Nuke

  • MS Word

  • MS PowerPoint

  • MS Excel

  • Speed Tree

  • 3D Coat

  • Marvelous Designer

SOFT SKILLS

  • Direction

  • Fast problem-solving

  • Good communication

  • Idea exchange

  • Delegation

  • Decision-making

  • Planning

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