Kian Farhang is a Senior Designer at Gigantic Playground with roots at Landor NYC and 2×4 Studios. He’s led brand and experience design across fashion, fintech, and cultural institutions, served on the faculty at American University, and continues as creative partner to MENYELEK. He designs for clarity, but builds for impact.
How many years have you been a judge?
5+
What are your responsibilities in your current role and what do you love most about your job?
I lead design on experiential and interactive work, most recently at Gigantic Playground, where I’ve been building Amazon’s retail presence at Best Buy and Walmart. That means everything from fixtures and in-store booths to the on-device demo content and attract loops that run on them. A big part of my role is storyboarding: mapping out how someone walks up to a product, what catches them, what they touch first, and what they walk away understanding.
What I love most is exactly that part. Storyboarding for interactive work isn’t just planning screens; it’s writing a story the person gets to move through. You’re designing the pacing, the reveal, the moment it clicks, but the audience is holding the controls. Getting a device demo or a physical space to feel like a narrative, not a feature list, is the part of the job I’d do for free.
What inspired you to pursue your career path?
I started in broadcast. I studied animation in my early twenties and spent years designing for TV: program logos, motion packages, whole visual languages for the bits between shows. That work taught me that design is really about timing and attention. You have a few seconds to make someone stop and feel something, and you learn to build a story inside that window.
Everything since has been me following that same instinct into bigger spaces. At Landor and 2×4 it became brand systems and environments; in retail it became physical booths and on-device experiences; in my research it became a question I keep asking: how do people move through a story when they’re the ones driving it? The medium keeps changing, but what pulls me in is the same. I like making things people experience, not just look at.
What was your first job in the industry? What did it teach you?
My first design jobs were in broadcast TV, but the one I think of as my real start was 2×4, working under Michael Rock. It was the first time I was inside a studio where ideas were taken seriously at every level, and the bar was high without the room feeling tense.
The biggest thing it taught me is how much the team shapes the work. Being on the right creative team, one that knows how to protect the environment so people can take risks and still ship, changes what you’re capable of. I did some of my best thinking there not because I was working harder, but because the culture made it easy to be both creative and productive. I’ve carried that into every role since, especially when I’ve been the one leading. I try to build that same kind of room for the people around me.
What do you look for to determine excellence in video?
Three things. First, craft quality. The basics have to be there: sound, edit, color, motion, typography. Nothing should pull me out of the piece unless it’s meant to.
Second, whether it holds up against global standards. I’ve seen enough work from different markets and industries to know what the best in the world looks like right now, and I want to see a piece that could sit next to that, not just stand out within its own category or budget.
Third, and most important, storytelling. Plenty of video is beautiful and forgettable. The work that stays with me knows exactly what it’s trying to make me feel and gets there with intention: the pacing, the reveal, the moment it lands. If it’s technically flawless but I don’t feel anything, it’s not excellent yet.
What initiatives or projects are you working on now that excite you?
Two things outside my day-to-day design work are taking up most of my excitement right now.
The first is MENYELEK, the New York avant-garde fashion house where I’m creative partner and lead brand strategy and creative direction. We just presented THE NARRATOR, our SS27 women’s show at New York Fashion Week, following last season’s CFDA Calendar debut. I’m also developing The MENI Cut, a project that turns MENYELEK’s reconstruction method into a pattern edition other people can actually use. It’s been a great test of taking a brand’s craft and designing a system around it.
The second is TECHNO BOY, my own label, rooted in rave culture and an artcore aesthetic. I’m building it from zero: the identity, the site, casting, the voice on social. It’s the one place where I’m the client, the designer, and the storyteller all at once, and it’s teaching me more about brand-building than any brief ever has.
Tell us about a moment of recognition that had an effect on you – whether personal or official? What does recognition mean to you and why is it important in our industry?
One of the moments that stuck with me most came early, when I saw my motion graphics go out on national TV for the first time. No award, no announcement, just my work on air in front of millions of people who had no idea who made it. I remember feeling equal parts proud and exposed. It was the first time I understood that design isn’t finished when you export it; it’s finished when it reaches people.
That’s still what recognition means to me: proof that the work connected with someone. Awards matter, but they’re a formal version of the same thing, someone stopping to say this landed.
In our industry it’s important because so much great work is invisible by design. The best motion, UX, or environmental work often disappears into the experience, and the people behind it rarely get named. Recognition gives that work a record, sets a bar for what excellent looks like, and pushes everyone, including the next generation, to raise it. That’s a big part of why I keep coming back to judge.
In your experience, what is a significant change you are seeing happen in the video, television, and/or film industry, and what insight can you share about how to navigate it?
Hand drawing, always. Before I open any software, I sketch. It’s the fastest way I know to get an idea out of my head without the tools deciding what it should look like. On screen, everything looks finished too early, and it’s easy to start polishing instead of thinking. On paper, a bad idea looks like a bad idea, and I can move past it in seconds.
It’s also where the storytelling starts for me. Most of my interactive and motion work begins as rough frames in a sketchbook, arrows, notes, little moments I want the audience to feel. By the time I get to the computer, I already know the story; the software is just how I tell it well.
What excites you about judging for the Telly Awards?
Video is where I started. I came up in broadcast, designing program logos, motion packages, and interstitials for TV channels, and I’ve judged the Communicator Awards for the past few seasons. What excites me about the Telly Awards is seeing how people are stretching the moving image now, across screens, platforms, and physical spaces, and getting to reward work that’s both well-crafted and genuinely surprising.
