Meow

I was brough on early in production to concept the initial art direction for the Sea of Theives UI.

To immerse the player into the world of the game, I wanted to create something which was in keeping with the art style and painterly feel of the game. Players should feel immediately that they are part of this pirate world.

My task was to art direct and create concepts for the UI. The game was still in pre production but the direction to follow was futuristic cityscapes, glass and neon.

I worked with the team in Helsinki for a week creating rough concepts before focussing on one agreed direction which I then refined over the next few months. I took influence from glass shards and reflective materials which led me to create the triangular pattern, the angular layered panels and the light effects.

Using the inspiration of tire tracks, dirt marks and oil I created a grungy UI which would immediately immerse the player into a world of dirt bikes and motocross.

I AM PLAYR is a first person point of view football game for Facebook and iOS. The client wanted something fresh, bright with a Facebook friendly style.

I worked with the team for 18 months designing the UI from the ground up and keeping the game constantly updated. One of the main challenges was the amount of text elements which I overcame by utilising iconography where possible. I looked at other sports games and brands such as Nike to create something really colourful, clickable and user friendly. With the game being updated every 2 weeks I was able to do lots of A/B testing with different elements and button colours which gave me a really good insight into how people play F2P games.

Publisher //
We R Interactive

Released on //
Facebook
iOS

Brief
Skateboard Party 1 was looking a bit dated so the client wanted something completely new and away from the current direction.

Result
After looking at a lot of skateboarding reference I created a design which was bright, modern and appealing to the skateboarding generation. I wanted something grungy, but not dirty grunge so I used skewed panels, halftone patterns, geometric shapes and added a slight dust texture to the black areas of the design.

Skateboard Party 3 Brief
Refresh the colours of Skateboard Party 3, and utilise the new star of the game, Greg Lutzka.

I created the HUD graphics, icons and achievement icons to match the graffiti style of the rest of the game UI.

Street Outlaws is a racing game set in the illegal drift racing world. The brief was to create a UI and logo which immediately set the tone of the game.

I designed the UI with influence from neon, metal, shiny textures and light effects to reflect the style of street drift racing.

Publisher //
Ratrod Studio inc

Released on //
iOS
Android
Windows Phone

Brief
This was a special release of Dead Island which existed inside the PlaystationHome environment. I was tasked to create a UI which would fit with the console release but had it's own individual look.

Result
I used lots of texture such as old torn paper, pieces of wood and blood splatters to reflect a world which had been infected by a zombie apocalypse.

For this UI I was influenced by the idents the BBC created for their coverage of Formula 1. They used neon light trails on the cars which worked really well with the fast nature of F1. The cars are the main stars of the game so I took the 3D models, rendered them out in a specially lit scene, used really reflective surfaces and added motion blur and light streaks. I kept the UI clean and simple to allow the cars to shine through.

For this project I created a sleek, glossy UI and HUD which could equally be used as TV graphics. The main challenge was the amount of information which had to be presented on each screen, particularly with the character select screen. I also created a set of logos for the tennis clubs and mini games.

My first task was to produce a logo for the game. I wanted to use the D and R to create something really iconic. I sketched out lots of concepts on pen and paper until I came up with the chevron idea. I then took it into photoshop, adding gloss, texture and chrome and defining the red and black colour scheme. This logo then led on to the rest of the UI. The buttons reflect the start buttons which appear in cars and the panels use glossy headers, shiny icons and make use of the nice in game visuals of the cars and tracks.

Sega games and Sonic in particular are well known for blue skies and fun nature. I created the UI using the bright colours associated with Sega games. I also designed the Nintendo DS version which had to be much simpler but still feel like part of the same family.

I wanted to give a real world feel to the UI so I created 3D objects such as lap timers, folded maps, id passes and clipboards. I also created the cut scenes for the game.

I was given a bank of Baby Jake assets to create all of the screens, including backgrounds and animated illustrated buttons. I also created the simpler buttons in the UI in keeping with the Baby Jake style. The result was a UI which was colourful and appealing to small children whilst also being understandable and easy to use.

Being part of the Skateboard Party family, the UI layout was kept cohesive with the look and feel with change of fonts, colour scheme, backgrounds and icons to create something individual and thematically more tailored to winter sports.

Snowboard Party 2
I created a new, brighter colour schemes for the new version of Snowboard Party, created new background images and new promo artwork.

The Xbox360 version had an impressive full 3D UI with flying shards of glass and 3D panels. The limits of the PSP meant I only had 2 dimensions to play with, however I managed to create something which was pseudo 3D using panels on a carousel and 2D textures of flying glass. Adding light effects and reflections also added to the 3D effect.

The game art was was really nice and stylised so I carried on the theme, using the shapes of the trees to create spiky and angular buttons and UI elements. I also took the colours straight from the artwork, chose a font which suited and added a paper texture to all of the elements.