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Interactive Editorial
The Mystery Wasn't the Show. It Was Getting You to Care
Partnership
In the Know
Sector
Entertainment
Concept
I had a problem that would make most creative teams break into a cold sweat: launch a psychological thriller about a journalist investigating the disappearance of 300 people from a small town—with absolutely no assets. Just a title and a premise.
How do you get people to care about a mystery when you can't reveal anything about it? You stop trying to sell the show and start telling the kinds of stories that make someone want to watch a show like Limetown.
I created an interactive Secret Case File—a sprawling map of America's darkest, most unexplained moments. Each pin on that map wasn't clickbait; it was a rabbit hole. A genuine story that pulls you in because it's true, and when it's strange enough, it is more gripping than any plot twist.
The beauty was this: we never had to convince anyone to care about Limetown. By the time they saw the show's CTA, they were already investigators.
Strategy
People don't resist advertising because they hate being sold to. Give people something genuinely fascinating, and they will choose to go deeper. And they did by clicking on the CTA.
Role
Senior Art Director: Concept, Layout
Results
Proved you don't need assets. You need an idea. I built something people actually wanted to spend time with. The real win? It became the template for how our studio approached longform digital content.
Design Aesthetic
The case file aesthetic does immediate psychological work. But here's the trap—grunge is a tightrope. Done wrong, it screams 2008 Photoshop filters and kills credibility instantly.
We needed the language of vintage investigation—the worn paper, the typewriter keys, the redacted stamps—but executed with modern craft. Clean edges. Crisp contrast. Textures that feel tactile, not stock. The goal was authenticity that breathes, not nostalgia that suffocates.
Modern execution transformed branded content into something that felt like it existed despite the brand, not because of it.
Design Mechanics
You start with a map of America—not one town, but all of them. That scope matters. It signals pattern, conspiracy, something bigger. Hover over a hotspot and a town name appears. Every interaction is designed to make you feel like an investigator, not a viewer.
Click, and information doesn't just appear—it pops, like you've cracked open a sealed file. Then the choice: more information waiting, if you want it. Each interaction asks you to go deeper.
Layout System
The turn-based card system kept it all digestible within one screen, critical for mobile, but the feeling was pure investigation.
Most campaigns respond to this by dumbing things down. I did the opposite: I made complexity accessible. You're not passively scrolling through a wall of text that disappears off-screen—you're actively curating your own investigation.
We built mechanics that respected your intelligence and rewarded your curiosity. That's not an ad. That's an experience worth your time.
Credits
Executive Creative Director
UX Designer
Copy Editor
Brian Lightbody
Brad Mead
Jessica Dickson
LinkedIn
Info@duanebruton.com
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