Local artist and animator Hayley Morris, Warren, has been honored with a Creative Arts Emmy Award for Outstanding Motion Design for her work on the Amazon MGM docuseries “Octopus!” The two-part series, narrated by Emmy Award winner Phoebe Waller-Bridge, combines investigative storytelling with handcrafted visuals – including 10 minutes of stop-motion animation art directed and fabricated by Morris.
At the heart of the series is an octopus named Doris – designed and created by Morris herself – showcasing her hand-crafted approach to animation. As art director and stop-motion design/fabrication lead, Morris collaborated with Mighty Oak and Jigsaw Productions to bring the project to life.
A graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design, Morris is the founder of Shape & Shadow, an animation studio specializing in mixed media and stop-motion storytelling. Known for her tactile style, she has collaborated with clients including Netflix, MTV, Sesame Street, Burt’s Bees, Samsung, and musicians such as The Smashing Pumpkins, Iron & Wine, and Explosions in the Sky.
The 77th Creative Arts Emmy Awards in 2025 will have an edited presentation broadcast on FXX on Saturday, September 13, 2025, at 8 p.m. ET/PT, and it will also stream on Hulu through October 7, 2025. The two-night ceremony itself will have taken place a week prior on September 6 and 7, 2025, honoring behind-the-scenes and technical achievements in television.
For more information about Hayley Morris and her studio Shape & Shadow, visit www.shapeandshadow.com.
