Stephen Goalby Seeks New Challenge Leading Design at Parliament

Creative motion design expert Stephen Goalby is making one of the biggest leaps of his career. Having worked in British design shops for a decade before leading design at Framestore in the UK for seven years, Stephen has plied his craft across the worlds of commercials, theme parks, and blockbuster films, even designing a Bond opening title sequence for ‘No Time to Die’. 

But his next challenge lies in America to head up the design department at the independent VFX and creative studio, Parliament.

“I like the challenge of something new,” says Stephen, “so I always push for new styles and techniques, and to do something a bit different that’s out of my comfort zone. That’s when it’s fun!”

Stephen, who will take on the role of creative director and head of design, enjoys the hands-on craft of smaller jobs just as much as the pressure of large-scale projects – something he’ll no doubt face at his new employer, which has forged a reputation for its prolific work on many Super Bowl ads each year.

So when his former colleague, creative technology and design lead at Parliament, Krystina Wilson, reached out about this opportunity, it was a surprisingly easy decision.

But what really sealed the deal was the amount of high quality work that Parliament has produced in such a short time. “The standard of work is so high,” he says, “it could sell itself as a design agency already, with the level of its VFX work. It's a really strong agency.

“When I had my initial talk with Phil [Crowe, Parliament founder], and he was talking through all the work, I couldn’t understand how they’d done all that good work in four years! Hats off to them, it’s really brilliant. I'm excited to go there and hopefully bring some of my skills to help them. It’s hopefully going to be a really fun few years.”

Above: Parliament's post production work in Lays' 2025 Super Bowl ad

Looking back at his career path to this point, Stephen admits that his route has been more of a zigzag than a straight line – largely because a career in the creative industries was simply not a visible possibility during his childhood in Mansfield, England.

He had his earliest brushes with animation during visits to Walt Disney World’s MGM Studios - now Hollywood Studios - where he could peer through windows and see animators at work.  But traversing that glass barrier seemed “so far away” from his own life that he couldn’t begin to imagine a route to get there. “I didn't know what a runner was, even at University. I had no idea those opportunities existed.”

Stephen studied product design at Nottingham Trent University, initially put off from the digital side of the craft before seeing someone use 3D Studio Max altered his trajectory. He then started teaching himself how to use different software from books – to the point where professors questioned if he was on the right track.

“It was hard because no one I knew did it, so I had no idea if I was doing it right. I loved that it felt technical but was also creative, and ticked the art side.”

From there, Stephen joined a local design agency, Linney, where he sold the idea of doing more film and animation to the MD. Luckily, the MD saw Stephen’s vision and potential, and helped him develop a team that grew into a 15+ person film studio. “It helped me solidify my skills and taught me how to deal with clients, and Linney were mainly graphic designers so it opened me up to all these graphic designers, who inspired me.”

After seven years, Stephen moved to design agency The One Off and worked on projects for Primark, Speedo and Royal Doulton – blending his motion graphics talents with live action directing and other animation.”It was a big mix, which keeps you learning and developing,” he says. 

Then came Stephen’s seven-year stint at Framestore, where his early interests in Disney came full-circle, working on Disneyland theme park rides like ‘Avengers: Flight Force’ and leading the design for an animated sequence in Disney’s 2023 film ‘Haunted Mansion’. “We only had eight weeks to do it, and we wanted to do something different,” he says. “We pushed this hand-drawn, 3D feel, and that just brought a whole world of challenges. Eight weeks with quite a small team – it was a challenge but really rewarding when it all came together.”

Reflecting on now being the person on the other side of the glass, he says, “It was a bit of a dream come true. I felt a kind of responsibility, in a way, that hopefully it might inspire some other kids to get into this stuff.”

In 2023, Stephen moved brand-side as design director for Sky Creative, a job that gave him the variety he seeks with the various brands and platforms under Sky’s umbrella. But now, he returns to a creative studio in Parliament, and perhaps his greatest challenge yet – to grow the design offering and its team, building it into a discipline that Parliament is just as known for as its VFX work.

“It’s the perfect opportunity because I’m in from the ground-up,” he says. “Especially for this stage of my career, it's not like joining an agency where I have to adapt to their systems, it’s all brand new, carte blanche, where you can go out and do it your way.”

He continues, “It’s almost gone full circle to my first design agency job, where two of us went out and sold this idea of doing motion graphics and design, and film work. I find it really exciting.

“That opportunity to collaborate and grow Parliament’s design division, that's the biggest pull for me. I'm amazed by the work, it's a brilliant portfolio at four years old, and to be part of that is exciting in itself. But then to be asked to bring my background of 20-odd years in design and merge that all together with all different mediums –  immersive, design, VFX – that's super exciting. Pinch me!”