02 / ABOUT
MATTIBURNS / MOTION DESIGNER
RC NELSON
I shape complex ideas into stories people people can feel.
START A PROJECT →MANIFESTO
clear.
bold.
human.
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.
Before the business, I was simply someone drawn to ideas, images, rhythm, and the quiet possibility of making something beautiful. That desire still sits at the center of my work.
I’m RC Nelson, a creative strategist, animator, illustrator, writer, and founder of MattiBurns Creative Studio. I help brands, agencies, producers, and mission-driven teams uncover the clearest and most human version of what they are trying to say.
Sometimes that means shaping the story. Sometimes it means building the visual language. Sometimes it means bringing together animation, design, motion, emerging technology, and the right creative collaborators.
My role is not to arrive with all the answers. It is to listen carefully, ask better questions, recognize what is already alive inside an idea, and help give it form.
I care deeply about making work that is useful, but I also believe usefulness should not come at the expense of beauty.
Beauty can invite people closer. It can make a difficult idea feel understandable. It can turn information into experience. It can give someone a reason to pause, feel, remember, and see something differently. That is what I hope to create.
Work with clarity. Work with warmth. Work with imagination. Work that feels carefully made because it was carefully considered. Whether I am developing an animated film, creating a visual identity, shaping a campaign, or exploring a new creative process, I begin in the same place: Listen for the living idea. Protect what makes it meaningful. Then create the most beautiful and honest way for it to be seen.
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
DIRECTION
I assemble the right people, tools, and process for each project, creating a flexible production approach that protects quality, communication, collaboration, schedule, and budget together.
STORY
I find the emotional center of an idea, then develop the structure, language, rhythm, and moments that help people understand, feel, and remember it clearly.
STRATEGY
I listen closely, uncover the clearest idea, and shape a thoughtful creative path connecting purpose, audience, message, and the possibilities already living within the work.
DESIGN
I build visual worlds with character, clarity, and warmth, using illustration, color, typography, composition, and texture to make each story feel distinct and alive onscreen.
ANIMATION
I use movement, timing, pacing, performance, and sound to turn still ideas into expressive experiences that feel intentional, cinematic, human, and emotionally grounded throughout production.
REACH
I help shape the final message, format, and rollout so the work reaches the right people clearly, consistently, and with purpose across every chosen channel.
The name / A family story
Who is MattiBurns?
Before the band, before the studio, Matti Burns was my great-grandfather’s stage name.
Matthew Frazetta arrived through Ellis Island from Sicily when he was twelve years old. He entered a new world with little certainty, no established path, and no guarantee that hard work would be enough. He had to create something from nothing.
By the 1930s, he was tap dancing in Vaudeville shows around Brooklyn under the name Matti Burns. The stage name helped him move through a world where an immigrant identity could close a door before he ever had the chance to step onto the stage. But performance was only one expression of his creativity. He carried the same rhythm, ingenuity, and determination into business. He opened pizza shops, which became an Italian restaurant, and later in life He restored bicycles, He kept finding new ways to turn skill, personality, and relentless effort into opportunity. That was the family pattern. When there was no open door, build one. When there was no opportunity, create one. When resources were limited, work with what was in your hands and make it worthy of being shared.
At the center of that drive was family. Food was never merely food. Cooking was memory, identity, hospitality, and celebration. Rich, authentic Italian recipes were handed down across generations, carrying stories from one kitchen to the next. Those recipes helped become the foundation for family restaurants. The restaurants were more than businesses. They were gathering places built from heritage, hard work, conversation, and the belief that what had been preserved within the family could also nourish a wider community. That legacy required grit. It required the courage to begin again in an unfamiliar country, the hustle to survive uncertain seasons, and the creative prowess to recognize possibility where other people might have seen only limitations.
In 2003, while sitting with my grandmother on her back porch in Florida, I heard those stories again. At the time, I was playing around town with my band and needed a proper name. After that day, MattiBurns became the name of the band and years later, it became the name of my animation studio. Now, as the third generation carrying this creative and entrepreneurial legacy forward, I understand the name differently. It reminds me that creativity does not begin with ideal circumstances. It begins with vision. With resourcefulness. With the willingness to work, adapt, experiment, and keep building when the outcome is uncertain. MattiBurns carries the drive of an immigrant who entered a new world and made room for his family within it. It carries the warmth of crowded tables, inherited recipes, handmade businesses, live performance, and generations of people who understood that creating and providing were often the same act. That spirit continues through my work today. I may build with stories, characters, animation, design, technology, and film instead of restaurant kitchens and Vaudeville stages, but the instinct is the same: Take what has been placed in your hands. Make something meaningful from it. Invite people in. Then leave something growing for the generation that follows.
POINT OF VIEW
“EXCELLENCE AND BEAUTY ECHO LIKE BELLS OF VICTORY WHEN OFFERING BREAKTHROUGH.”
CLEAR THINKING. BOLD DESIGN. HUMAN STORIES.
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.
MATTIBURNS / ST. LOUIS / AVAILABLE FOR SELECT COLLABORATIONS
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