Xbox Now & Next Rebrand
Xbox . September 2025
Xbox Game Pass Refresh
Xbox Now and Next is the primary showcase for the Xbox Game Pass ecosystem, designed to help players understand what they can play today and what is worth anticipating next. The show is built inside a strict visual and motion framework rooted in the new Xbox Game Pass Bento identity. This identity, developed in partnership with McCann, distills the campaign into a simple but expressive kit of parts: bold geometric Bento boxes, a highly restricted color palette, proportional corner radii, and a type hierarchy that balances the “This Is An Xbox” typeface with traditional Windows-based Segoe. The images from the campaign set the tone for the entire system. They establish a visual language that is confident, contemporary, and immediately tied to Game Pass through the unmistakable use of Bento Light Green, Xbox Dark Green, Base Black, and rounded geometry.
The design work for Now and Next translates this identity into motion. Every frame is treated as a flexible grid of Bento cards that can contain copy, box art, gameplay, brand marks, or iconography. The goal is to create order, rhythm, and readability. Each segment, from Breaking News to Now With Game Pass, occupies a predictable structure that allows information to surface quickly without sacrificing clarity.
Early layouts tested image ratios, Bento arrangements, icon placement, logotype integrations, and multi-line text handling until the final structure emerged. The focus was always on consistency, modularity, and speed. The show needed to communicate a large amount of information with minimal friction in both editing and design, and the Bento system provided the constraints required to achieve that.
To edit the show quickly a series of scripts were created to quickly access content like video, box art and various other compositions. The scripts could then be accessed via kBar to replace the content. Every piece of text followed the rules of the campaign by using expressions to fit the text and various pieces of information within the boundaries of the design rules. In many ways the scripting, and numerous amount of code needed, turned this project into creating a pseudo-application to make the refinement and delivery of the show expedient.
Creative Director: Dan Chosich
Motion Design: Dan Chosich
Design Partner: 215 McCann
Process
My design proposal is above. This process began with a deep dive into the principles behind McCann’s rebrand. I reviewed roughly forty Figma slides that outlined intent, hierarchy, and how content should breathe on screen. From there, the job was to translate an open, freeform philosophy into a disciplined bento box framework that could support the show’s existing format without losing its soul. This meant auditing the current show and translating it to the new design in Illustrator/InDesign for approval and then moving into After Effects.
Only a handful of Figma slides touched on motion, and my contract window was short, so I built a flexible After Effects system that could absorb any future adjustments from Xbox/McCann. That meant every bento box could become anything. Text could turn into video. Video could turn into key art. Every piece could morph without friction. The upside was a beautifully fluid motion language. The tradeoff was that such freedom introduces complexity for editors with different skill levels.
To counter that, I created helper scripts that surfaced controls directly in the master composition. Change text with a single field. Swap video with one button. Adjust shadows, icons, gradients, or wipes with simple toggles. The system is deep, but it is intentional and efficient. It allowed me to finish a full episode in roughly fourteen days, delivered cleanly across both 16:9 and 9:16 formats.