I was commissioned to design a new fantasy football manager game aimed primarily at the Malaysian and Chinese markets. Unlike Fantasy Premier League (FPL) where I implemented a new brand (created by the Premier League’s in-house team), for this game I created the brand and all other design elements required myself.
I was solely responsible for the entire concept and design execution of this project including content and user journey planning, information architecture, all copywriting, UI and UX design.
The client had a brief of sorts and the first draft of the rules of the game ready, I soon realised that they wanted me to act as project lead to set the direction of the functionality as well. They also had some complicated features that set it apart from FPL such as monetising the game, in-game advertising, occasional player auctions and the ability to have different gameworlds – where one user can have several teams. I had to flesh out these concepts and work out how to incorporate them.
Structured design process
The beginning of the steps I took to achieve this were to create user flows such as this one and two site maps In complex projects such as this I add more detail to sitemaps to create what I call Content Site Maps. This method quickly helps me to see key components of certain pages in relation to one another.
Then I started the brand design, of which the logo is the starting point. While that was with the client for approval I could begin wireframing.
Although there was not a significant language barrier I did need to make documentation very visual and detailed to help ensure concepts were clear. Once the wireframes were approved I produced a design system and a visual style guide for their reference. I found Sketch with Marvel and Zeplin very good tools to support my communication with and hand off to their Developers.
