Rhythm became a design tool.
Band life taught me structure, collaboration, identity, and the emotional timing that now shapes my motion work.
02 / ABOUT
MATTIBURNS / CREATIVE DIRECTOR
RC NELSON
I SHAPE COMPLEX IDEAS
INTO STORIES PEOPLE CAN FEEL.
MANIFESTO
BEAUTY WITH
A JOB TO DO.
I believe the best creative work is clear enough to understand, bold enough to remember, and human enough to feel.
That is the job: find the idea, give it a voice, build its world, and make it move.
ABOUT RC / ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI
Artist. Designer.
Director. Storyteller.
I’m RC Nelson, the creative director behind MattiBurns. I write, design, illustrate, and animate—often within the same project—so the original idea stays intact from the first conversation to the final frame.
I work with brands, agencies, and mission-driven teams that need a thoughtful creative partner who can see the big picture and obsess over the details.
TELL ME ABOUT YOUR PROJECT →EXPERTISE
01
STORY
I find the emotional truth, sharpen the message, and build the narrative that everything else follows.
02
DESIGN
I turn the idea into a visual world with clarity, character, and a reason behind every choice.
03
MOTION
I use timing, rhythm, and animation to make the story land—and stay with people.
The name / A family story
MattiBurns is a name I inherited.
Before it was a studio, Matti Burns was my great-grandfather’s stage name.
Matthew Frazetta arrived through Ellis Island from Sicily at twelve years old in the 1920s. By the 1930s he was tap dancing in Vaudeville shows around Brooklyn. He performed as Matti Burns—a stage name that helped conceal the immigrant identity that could close doors before he ever stepped onstage.
As he grew older, the performer became the entrepreneur of the family. He owned Italian restaurants and pizza shops, and later restored bicycles. My great-grandparents helped raise my sister and me; until the end of their lives, one of our shared rituals was watching wrestling together on television.
In 2003, while sitting with my grandmother on a porch in Florida, I heard those family stories again as I was starting a band. MattiBurns became the band’s name, and eventually the name of my studio—a way to keep the business in the family and carry a resilient, creative history forward.
Music before motion
The studio began with a band. Writing songs, building a live identity, and learning how rhythm changes emotion became part of the creative foundation I still use in editing, animation, pacing, and visual storytelling today.
THE MATTIBURNS PROCESS
WRITE/DESIGN/ANIMATE
Personal projects / From the Garden
The ideas I grow for myself.
From the Garden is where music, original characters, creative experiments, and process notes live beyond client work. These projects keep the studio curious—and often become the seeds of the next commercial idea.
Characters with room to grow.
Independent stories and visual worlds are a proving ground for character systems, tone, and long-form imagination.
Showing the work behind the work.
Field notes on animation, design, AI-assisted workflows, and the decisions that turn a promising idea into a finished piece.
SELECTED WORK
THE WORK
BEHIND THE WORK.
Three projects that show how I move from idea to image to motion.
POINT OF VIEW
“THE BEST WORK FEELS INEVITABLE—
ONCE YOU SEE IT.”
CLEAR THINKING. BOLD DESIGN. HUMAN STORIES.
HAVE A PROJECT IN MIND?
LET’S MAKE
SOMETHING
MEANINGFUL.
Tell me what you’re building, where it’s stuck, and what you want people to feel. I’ll help you find the story and bring it to life.
GET STARTEDMATTIBURNS / ST. LOUIS / AVAILABLE FOR SELECT COLLABORATIONS
