selected work of chris yenn

Multidisciplinary creative director leading creative and content development for global campaigns at the intersection of music, brands, and entertainment.

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WHATMORE Coachella 2026

Client: WHATMORE

2026

Overview

Stage design and visuals for New York hip hop collective WHATMORE’s debut festival performance at Coachella

WHATMORE had never played a stage like Coachella’s Gobi Tent — big, open, in the daytime, for festival audience of thousands. They wanted to create a stage that not only captured their emphatic New York identity but would have the visual impact worthy of their first Coachella performance. The brief was simple: bring NYC to the desert.

I assembled and directed my team of technical, production, and visual designers to concept and execute an immersive stage environment for WHATMORE Coachella debut in 2026. Our concept was built through observation of New York as a city, as a culture, that is constantly under construction, reintegrating and reinventing itself. As an artist collective that blends inspirations from hip hop to jazz to indie rock to punk, this spirit of constant building, remixing, and creation was the perfect reflection of the WHATMORE identity as artists on the rise.

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Role: Creative Director
Lighting Design: Jack Dermer
Technical Design: Julien Reux
Production Design: Logan Rauhut
Visuals: No Mercy c/o Sahir Khan, Branko Jass

Photography

Visual

Our visual was a 6 minute looping backdrop that brings to life the skyline and textures of New York City in a compact scene.

To deepen the personal story of the visual, we invited WHATMORE to design every tag on the billboard element, including the statement WHATMORE design, each group member’s name, and shout outs to LaGuardia High School (LAG18) where the artists first became friends.