Meet BIEN, the motion studio championing inclusion from the ground up

What if motion design didn’t just move pixels, but moved people, too? That’s the driving question behind BIEN, a Los Angeles-based animation and motion design studio with an unapologetically bold vision: to build a more inclusive, representative, and accessible creative industry.

Founded by Ricardo Roberts and Hung Le, BIEN was born out of a desire to change the industry from within. That’s in part because Ricardo and Hung struggled to find mentors who looked like them in the beginning of their careers. “No one opened doors for us when we started,” says Hung. “So now we’re holding them open for others and smashing down the barriers to entry in our industry.”

Now, BIEN’s clients include some of the biggest names in tech, entertainment and sports: Google, Netflix, Dropbox, Apple, Disney, Hulu, National Geographic, and The Paralympics. The studio’s impact, however, extends far beyond the big-name logos. At the heart of BIEN's practice is a self-developed methodology they call Inclusive Motion Design (InMoDe™), a philosophy that’s as much about how work gets made as what it looks like. “We design with, not for,” says Ricardo. “Great design brings people together. Inclusive design brings more people together.”

It’s clear that for both Ricardo and Hung, inclusion isn’t about checking boxes. Instead, it’s about delivering more effective, resonant, and culturally fluent work and proving that representation and results go hand in hand. Whether it’s a marketing campaign, graphic package, animation guidelines, campaign ID, DOOH, or a launch film, BIEN's output is intentionally designed to connect across cultures, abilities, and lived experiences.

But, BIEN isn’t just advocating for inclusion in its client work. The studio takes active steps to remake the industry around it. The team has launched a series of initiatives aimed at making motion design more accessible, transparent, and equitable. There’s Creative Codex, a free, open-source glossary built to standardise language across the motion design industry. It’s like a translator for creatives, studios, and clients, aimed at demystifying the terminology that often keeps newcomers out of the conversation.

Then, there’s Fliers on the Wall {FOTW}, a mentorship programme unlike any other. Instead of the traditional internship model, FOTW gives creatives of all levels the chance to observe real BIEN projects in action, such as Slack chats, Zoom calls, mood boards, and all. In 2024 alone, it connected over 100 creatives with rare behind-the-scenes access to the creative process from start to end, making invisible industry knowledge visible.

BIEN has also partnered with School of Motion to offer annual scholarships and mentorship to underrepresented students. In its recent short documentary Quad Life, co-produced with Only Today, the studio tells the story of David Jeffers, a quadriplegic sound designer redefining what creativity looks like after trauma. And, most recently, BIEN has turned its attention inward – redesigning its own website to be one of the most accessible in the industry. Built from the ground up with accessibility at the forefront, the new site works seamlessly with screen readers, keyboard navigation, and low-vision browsing.

“We want to be one of the top ten studios in the world,” says Ricardo. “And we’re going to get there by doing things differently – by practicing our mantra, design with, not for.” That means creating top-tier work with a diverse team behind the scenes. It means adding transparency to the process, and embedding accessibility, not just adding it in later. And it means telling stories that reflect the full spectrum of human experience, not just the narrow view that’s long dominated the industry.

At a time when inclusion is often treated as a trend, BIEN is making the case – visually, structurally, and culturally – that it’s the future. And that future, if Ricardo and Hung have anything to say about it, is inclusive by design.