Close ✕
Shamus Johnson
WorkReelGalleryAbout
Microsoft — hero image
Microsoft · Seven Years · 2017—2024
Microsoft
Overview
From Mixed Reality to Azure — shaping how innovation is seen and understood.
I began my Microsoft journey as a Motion Designer on the Mixed Reality team, helping bring emerging technologies like HoloLens to life through 3D visualization, animation, and product storytelling.
Over time I took on larger creative responsibilities, growing from Motion Designer to Senior Motion Designer, Art Director, and eventually Principal Art Director — pushing the boundaries of real-time graphics, cinematic storytelling, and immersive product demos.
In 2024 I stepped into the role of Principal Motion Designer within Azure's Edge + Platform division, founding and leading a new in-house creative team producing customer evidence stories, vision videos, and mixed-media explainers.
Across seven years I built creative workflows, scaled design systems, and mentored new talent — helping shape how Microsoft's platforms were presented to customers and the broader market.
Principal Motion Designer
Building a creative studio from zero, inside Azure.
In the summer of 2024 I was asked to do something I hadn't done before at Microsoft: start a team from nothing. Azure's Edge + Platform division needed a way to make its most complex, least visual technology — distributed infrastructure, edge compute, silicon-level AI — actually land with customers and executives. There was no creative function to do that yet, so I built one.
I founded and led the in-house creative team for E+P from the ground up — defining what "good" looked like for the division's storytelling, then hiring the motion designers, editors, and 3D artists to deliver it. Within months we were shipping customer evidence films, executive vision videos, and product explainers that turned racks of silicon and abstract platform diagrams into stories people actually felt.
Beyond the work itself, I stood up the infrastructure a real studio needs: review pipelines, asset and style libraries, production timelines that scaled with an ever-growing slate, and a bar for craft that held even as we moved fast. It was equal parts creative direction and studio-building — the kind of ground-up ownership that doesn't come along often, and one of the most demanding, rewarding stretches of my time at Microsoft.
By the time I moved on, the team I'd started was a self-sustaining part of how Azure's edge infrastructure and AI capabilities got presented to the world.
01 — Microsoft Logo Motion
02–04 — Logo Rotate Studies
05 — Teams Backgrounds, Sunset
06 — Teams Backgrounds, Bloom
07–12 — Teams Background Set
Shtyrndrs Hills Ar 169 Sref Httpss.mj .Runehdrt9cs P0 Httpss 0c17735c 86f6 416f Af9f 9ffe9b379a43 — Microsoft 0 0 2 — Microsoft Shtyrndrs Abstract Shapes Ar 169 Sref Httpss.mj .Runs9krqwec C04843d4 E66a 4b62 84df 3dbee8dc2f7c 1 — Microsoft Shtyrndrs Minimalist Gradient Background Ar 169 Sref Httpss 256c53b1 92b5 8c5d A9301186a933 — Microsoft Surface Material Study Surface Material Study
Surface Material Study
13 — Surface Material Study
14–17 — Limestone Study
Limestone Sexy 0 — Microsoft Limestone Sexy 2 — Microsoft Limestone Sexy 4 — Microsoft Limestone Sexy 5 — Microsoft
18–20 — Color Study
Limestone Colors 0 — Microsoft Limestone Colors 1 — Microsoft Limestone Colors 2 — Microsoft
21–23 — Kitchen Renders
Kitchen 0 — Microsoft Mixed Reality Bloom Mixed Reality Bloom
Mixed Reality Bloom
24 — Mixed Reality Bloom
25–27 — Mixed Reality Bloom Studies
Mr Bloom — Microsoft HoloLens Mixed Reality HoloLens Mixed Reality
HoloLens Mixed Reality
28 — HoloLens Mixed Reality
29–35 — Bloom, Early Passes
Mr Bloom — Microsoft Mr Bloom — Microsoft Mr Bloom — Microsoft Mr Bloom — Microsoft Mr Bloom — Microsoft Product Render Study Product Render Study
Product Render Study
36 — Product Render Study
Camera Study
37 — Camera Study
Camera, Black
38 — Camera, Black
Cognition New Hire
39 — Cognition New Hire
40–47 — Product Render Studies
Eb Scale — Microsoft Eb 0 — Microsoft Eb 1 — Microsoft Eb 2 — Microsoft Eb 3 — Microsoft Eb 4 — Microsoft Eb 0 — Microsoft Eb 1 — Microsoft
48–50 — Early HoloLens R&D
Mr Sss — Microsoft Toy Study Toy Study
Toy Study
51 — Toy Study
52–53 — Toy Study
Toy — Microsoft Toy — Microsoft
54–58 — Microsoft Plus Logo Explorations
Rd 0 — Microsoft
Rd 1 — Microsoft Rd 2 — Microsoft Rd 3 — Microsoft Rd 4 — Microsoft
59–61 — Concept Renders
F23004a6 20c7 450d 29f4efd6b85a — Microsoft DNN Close DNN Close
DNN Close
62 — DNN Close
HPU 2.0
63 — HPU 2.0
Credits
Shamus Johnson
Principal Art Director, 2017—2024
Next Project
Starlink
→
© 2026 Shamus Johnson
X Instagram Vimeo