UI/UX - Entertainment, 2014 - 2020
Famous for legendary titles as World of Warcraft, Starcraft or Diablo, Blizzard Entertainment is a worldwide video game company dedicated to create unique and breathtaking experiences for players around the world. Either it’s on PC, consoles, mobile or in theaters, Blizzard’s fantasy is definitely recognized as a pillar of pop culture, defining industry standards for decades to come.
—— 01. ECRM
Email design
Staying tuned to a worldwide community
Blizzard Entertainment has built a worldwide and strong community along its adventures. With six active, cross-platforms, online video games, eCRM is definitely one of most efficient way to keep in touch. Engagement, retention or winback, approximatively ten campaigns a week are sent to more than 40 million players around the world.
Matching company’s high visual quality standards has always been one of my main concerns, especially when it comes to the design of emailing campaigns often perceived as intrusive marketing pressure by users.
To keep the fantasy alive and infuse magic all along, I’ve been using and editing magnificent official keyarts, using many different textures and effects straight from the games folders or creating eye-catchy, dedicated and unique visual animations. Not to mention various tips and tricks to prevent users frustration from reading and scrolling.
These attention to details all combined has surely contributed to make Blizzard’s emailing campaigns the most opened and clicked of the industry.
A fine tuned process
The intense launch rhythm was only possible with a structured precise workflow, team-wise and software. To ensure frictionless process within company’s organization and highest opening rates, I’ve been leading the conception of an in-house engine made to easily generate responsive emailing campaigns translated in 7 languages on the fly.
—— 02. BLIZZARD AT GAMESCOM
UI/UX - Desktop & mobile
Going live worldwide
Each year, one of the most important video game event in Europe - if not the world - takes place in Cologne, Germany. That year, Blizzard planned to showcase its main stage on a dedicated website livestream. Announcements, interviews, musical show and games, Blizzard’s main stage was playing non stop for the attendees and through the website, for everyone worldwide.
Dedicated features, dedicated purpose
On Blizzard’s Gamescom 2018 website, users were able to bookmark schedule events and create their own, they were able to set an items wishlist from the event official store, stay tuned with an updates recap. The website was specifically made for attendees to plan their venue and for people who couldn’t come and wanted to follow the event anyway.
UI/UX - Desktop & mobile
A guide in your pocket
A stable internet connexion hasn’t been Gamescom’s facilities major strenght. Not to mention how huge the place is, and the amount of companies on site making sometimes complicated for attendees to organize and follow their expected journey across the place.
The mobile app was designed specically for attendees on site, with features as offline mode, push notifications when bookmarked calendar events are about to start, available items store list and wishlist and various venue informations.
In the same time, attendees could experience Blizzard’s Gamescom 2018 mobile app «killer» feature: The Guided Tour.
Embark on a guided tour
The Booth Guided Tour was the app strongest feature. Made as an augmented reality treasure hunt, the guided tour embarked attendees to various Blizzard booths locations. The app was giving subtle hints for them to find and scan specific elements through their phone’s camera. If recognized as correct marker, a unique augmented reality 3D animation started on screen. Once these points of interest all collected, attendees were enrolled in a sweepstake.
Initally made to invite attendees discover Blizzard’s booths, the AR guided tour instantanely went viral and surprised players on site.
A few examples of AR animations playing (captured with an old mobile phone, unfortunately).
—— 03. PRINT
Billboards - Berlin Alexanderplatz
Berlin Calling
Blizzard releasing a new franchise has always been a major event in the entertainment industry. Overwatch has been announced and promoted worldwide through various advertising campaigns including stunts, banners, TV commercials and giant illuminated billboards like this one on Alexanderplatz, Berlin.
—— 04. LANDING PAGES
Landing pages - Consoles in store game page
Surfacing key selling points
Straight to the point, console’s online store promotional game page displays a few yet relevant information to the user. Focus on a simple interaction level, the interface is promoting the game within a gaming environment, therefore using specific language/structure must be easily identified by players.
Same-same, but different
While the way interfaces should behave on desktop or mobile is now quite common, an interface made for consoles adresses visibility and interaction concerns differently. It is a matter of scale, as a TV screen is set usually the other side of players living room. Not to mention the gamepad less handy than a computer mouse or a thumb on a touch screen.
—— 05. PAID MEDIA
Animated banners
20 seconds of your attention
Rich media has always been part of paid campaigns to promote Blizzard’s games special events as in game rewards or expansions releases. Rhythm, game assets and artworks, eye-catchy effects and final packshot all come together in these 20 seconds animated banners..
—— 06. SOCIAL HUB
Animated banners
Enhancing engagement with playful online tools
Blizzard’s cards game Hearthstone immediately became a huge success, gathering millions players around a fancy yet simple gameplay. While the community was still strongly involved with the game, Blizzard released the game first expansion Gnomes Vs Goblins. To enhance community’s engagement and tease the immintent release, we created a social hub collecting votes for a clan or another, showing the results live. New cards were revealed each day so users would keep coming back. The website was also featuring a social panel surfacing franchise’s latest trends and a page dedicated to showcase game’s new features.
Before applying assets, UI elements and textures, the hub project went through several phases of prototyping as wireframes and grayscale early mockups for both desktop and mobile versions.
Editing and drawing UI elements
In order to match game’s fantasy, I’ve created various icons and assets dedicated to specific actions. Including different states and hover animations.
Thank you for your time!
2022
2022