How FRAY Designs Visuals for Live Shows

A Look into our Process

Designing visuals for live shows is a complex, collaborative process that blends storytelling, technology, music, and logistics. From the outside, it can look like magic. An audience walks into a venue and is immediately immersed in a fully formed visual world that feels seamless and inevitable. But behind that moment is months of structured development, experimentation, conversation, and revision.

At FRAY, we design both video content and live camera worlds for tours. Sometimes a show is driven by heavily produced visual content. Sometimes it is entirely live camera. Often it is a hybrid of both. In every case, the goal is the same: to create a coherent visual language that supports the artist and connects the artist to the audience.

Over many years, we have refined a process that takes a project from first appointment through to opening night. There is no single universal method for designing live show visuals, but what follows is a detailed look at how we approach it and how the different phases connect together.

Appointment and Early Conversations

Every project begins differently. Sometimes a band or artist approaches us directly. Sometimes we are invited to pitch. Other times we are brought in by a creative director, lighting designer, production designer, or producer. There is no single route into a show.

Once appointed, the first step is conversation. We gather as much source material as possible. That might be a new album, demos, a script, a narrative concept, early set designs, or simply a loose ambition for the tour. At this stage, everything is open. The physical set may not yet exist. The screen layout might still be evolving. Budgets may not be fully defined.

Crucially, we are not only asking what the content should be. We are also asking how the artist should be seen. Are live cameras going to be central to the experience? Should they feel glossy and cinematic, raw and documentary, abstract and fragmented? Even if there is no pre-rendered content at all, the visual design still exists. It simply lives in how the cameras are treated, framed, coloured, and presented.

This is the most expansive phase of the project. It is creative, speculative, and full of possibility.

Concept Phase: Creating a Shared Language

In the studio, we call this first stage concept. The goal here is discovery

We take the conversations and materials we have been given and begin translating them into something visual and tangible. If someone says, “We want a blue square,” that could mean a thousand different things to different people. Our job is to remove ambiguity by creating images that everyone can look at and respond to.

This applies equally to content and cameras. A “cinematic” camera look might mean shallow depth of field and slow movement to one person, and handheld intensity to another. We have to visualise it.

We research, gather references, sketch ideas, test small visual moments, and explore directions. The output is usually a shared document or an online board using tools such as Miro or Figma. It contains reference imagery, early experiments, and sometimes a handful of rough frames that express our response to the material.

For camera-driven shows, this might include reference stills from film, photography, broadcast treatments, or test grades that suggest how the live image could feel. For content-driven shows, it might include graphic worlds, textures, motion references, or compositional ideas.

At this stage, we are not committing to final ideas. We are defining tone, texture, and emotional direction. We share this work with the wider team, discuss what resonates, and narrow the field. The concept phase gives the project its first clear shape.

Style Frames: From Reference to Authored Work

Once a direction begins to emerge, we move into style frames

For content, this means producing original still frames using the tools we will use to deliver the show. If we propose an idea, it must be something we can actually build within our studio’s skill set and within the production’s technical framework.

For camera-led shows, this might mean developing test grades, graphic overlays or compositional systems that define how the live image will be presented. It can also involve planning how multiple cameras will interact across different screen surfaces.

We typically create a series of frames for each song. These might show how a verse feels compared to a chorus, what a middle section could look like, or how a track might open and close. Whether those frames are fully animated graphics or treated live imagery, the principle is the same. We are defining the visual identity of each moment.

By now, we usually have more information about the physical environment. Screen dimensions are taking shape. Projection surfaces are being defined. The production design is becoming more concrete. That allows us to be more specific.

We present these frames, gather feedback, and refine. If something does not work, this is the right time to change direction.

Animatic: Introducing Time and Performance

After agreeing on the visual direction, we move into animatic

For content, this means building rough moving versions of sequences in time with the music. We respond to song structure and begin to shape pacing and transitions.

For camera-led elements, this can mean mapping out how shots will evolve across a song. We may define when the show feels intimate and when it expands. We may explore how the camera feed interacts with screen splits, overlays, or graphic augmentation.

In hybrid shows, this stage is where content and cameras begin to intertwine. Perhaps content frames the live image. Perhaps cameras break through graphic layers. Perhaps the live feed becomes part of the animation itself.

We share these moving drafts through review platforms or team sessions. Conversations with lighting designers intensify here. Colour palette alignment becomes essential. Video, whether pre-rendered or live, must live in harmony with the lighting world.

If the show involves three dimensional environments, we develop those further at this stage. Models are refined and scenes are assembled. As always, everything is built with the technical realities of playback and broadcast in mind.

Draft: Preparing for Rehearsal

Once the animatic phase is approved, we move into draft

Content sequences are fully animated, lit, textured, and rendered. Real time systems are programmed and tested. For camera design, live treatments, signal flows, overlays, and switching logic are prepared so they can function seamlessly in rehearsal.

By the time we arrive on stage, whether we are delivering complex animation, a pure live camera show, or a blend of both, the system must be robust. It must respond reliably under show conditions.

Commissioning: Where It All Connects

The commissioning phase begins in rehearsals

This is where content, cameras, lighting, set, and performance finally meet in the same physical space. The pace increases dramatically. Ideas are adjusted in real time. A camera shot might need reframing. A colour grade might need softening to sit better with the lights. A graphic layer might need simplifying once it meets live movement.

Some songs may be reworked entirely. That is part of the process. We adapt, refine, and respond until the visual world feels cohesive.

For many tours, we travel for the first shows to ensure that live cameras are fully dialled in and that the balance between content, lighting, and performance is working as intended.

Designing Visuals Means Designing the Entire Visual Language

When people ask how to design visuals for live shows, they often mean how to design video content. In reality, the discipline is broader. It is about designing how an audience sees an artist.

Sometimes that means building intricate animated worlds. Sometimes it means shaping the intimacy of a single live camera on a face. Often it means combining both into one seamless experience.

At FRAY, our process moves from open exploration to precise execution, always treating content and cameras as part of the same creative conversation. Because when the lights go down and the screens come alive, the audience does not distinguish between them. They simply experience the show.