My latest projects:
kels esports
Product showcase
Introduction & Overview
Client meeting
Research
Brand identity & Customer profile
Strategy
Stylescapes & Graphic language
More than a team more than a family
n kels esports we are here to create a solid enviroment to develop talent and strenghts the industry.
Our community and player focused system will nurture the fundations of the organization with the most loyal fanbase there can be gathered.
More than a team more than a family
n kels esports we are here to create a solid enviroment to develop talent and strenghts the industry.
Our community and player focused system will nurture the fundations of the organization with the most loyal fanbase there can be gathered.
WE’VE CAME TO STAY
An eSports team that will change how clubs work
...AND THIS IS ONLY THE START
We are kels eSports, we will rise, do not forget this
Introduction & Overview
Here are the most important things to understand the project and a basic overview on hoy I work and how this project has developed
Briefing
Kels eSports is an electronic sports brand focused on building teams, competing in tournaments and creating fanbase around the brand in order to get sponsors.
I worked in this project as lead designer and brand strategist alongside with Chris Bartha (CEO) and Jason Dilla (Marketing Director). The project was executed in remote since I was in Spain, the CEO in Germany and the marketing Director in Los Angeles.
Goal
The goal of the project was to create a brand from scratch that could stand out from the crowd of other growing eSports brands. Reach a big fan-base after that using the fan-base as leverage to get sponsors-
"create a brand that could stand out against other growing eSports brands"
"Since we aren't a recognisable brand, players do not trust us to commit to the project"
Challenges
Trust and care with the players. We are not a recognisable brand and therefore players do not trust us to commit to the project.
Flexibility in brand language. Since the market is so volatile the brand has to be flexible enough to face changes and adapt to different enviroments.
Solutions
For an extended information about the solutions and the meeting with the client go to the second tab.
Creating a family enviroment, inside and outside the company. The communication of the brand in social media tried to revolve around the players. Visual language has to communicate our emotions or how we our fans to react
Process & Product
For me it is very important to follow a well thought process in order to avoid missing critical steps and develop a product with consistency
01
Client meeting
The meeting with the clients is crucial to gather all the information posible and to get to know each other
02
Research
Research of the audience, competition and stakeholders. I need to know if these things exist, how they are, what their culture is and so on.
03
Brand identity
Building up the Brand and the different customer profiles this product will target in order to have a specific and defined communication for them.
04
Strategy
Developing a strategy with it's short, medium and long term goals and how the brand is going to be economically sustainable.
05
Graphic language
Stylescaspes are one of the most important tools to work with the client that avoids a lot of hassle, then, graphic language (logotypes, color pallets and typeface) is a straightfoward process.
06
Brand showcase
I build animations, mockups and resources to exhibit the product to the client and/or help in the selling process
Client meeting
The meeting with the clients is crucial to gather all the information posible and to get to know each other.
In my first meeting with Chris, he told me what kind of brand he had in mind, the story behind his idea and what were his goals and references.
• Committed, Professional brand
• To be recognisable as a gaming/eSports brand
• Players are an important part of the team.
• Get Fan-base is crucial
I faced a very common problem here; the lack of uniqueness in the information. The lack of something that could make us stand from the crowd, and the understanding why he wanted things that way, I couldn’t make design desitions with so little and shallow information so I had to start asking more valuable questions; why is that he wanted things that way. The next list is the detailed explanation I obtained:
"I faced a very common problem here; the lack of uniqueness in the information"
"I had to start asking more valuable questions"
Committed/ professional:
Since eSports teams that are starting are so ephemeral and don’t offer stability, players usually are not committed in return or they wait for a team that is not starting. Conclution: We need to get the trust of the players.
Recognisable as "gaming"
There’s this fear that since eSports is a new industry people get confused understanding eSports as some kind of physical sport. Conclution: we need to be clear and not confusing.
Players are important
We do actually care about the players since others don’t do. That is something that differentiates us from the other teams. Conclution: We plan to give them the necessary resources to grow and we want a good relationship with them.
Fan-base is important
since we need them not only to grow but more important to reach our first milestone, sponsors. Conclution: We need to measure and gather all the information we could about the fanbase to use it to get sponsors.
Solutions
Once I had all the information that I could gather from Chris I started asking questions about them and researching other solutions to this problems in order to generate ideas and breakthrough in the right direction. There is a sketch below from one of my sessions.
01
The players were implicated in the developing of the brand, informed and updated regularly, there’s no secrets here, “you are as part of this as us”, that was the message to help build culture corporate
02
Players' needs were taken in consideration. They wanted to stream and show themselves to the world not only as Kels’s players but as individuals. The visual language took that different needs on consideration.
03
The communication of the brand in social media tried to revolve around the players.
Players do not care or trust us enough to commit
Creating a family, inside and outside the company
Create a fanbase from scratch & get sponsors
Using emotion and meassuring systems
01
Visual language has resources to communicate our emotions or how we wanted our fans to react (ex: a duller visual message when our team loose to show our sadness)
02
Social media wasn’t just a channel to communicate information about the club, was a channel to establish relationships with the fans and other similar organisations.
03
Tracking the fanbase of every account and creating from them inphographics to have a important tool to get sponsors
01
Developing a consistent landscape of elements related to gaming to nurture the visual elements in order to keep it as close as possible to the gaming/eSports world.
02
Identiphy what elemetents are inherent of eSports and what elements are common with sports to enhance the uniqueness of eSports and keep the similarity so sports under control.
03
Testing the moodboard with people out and in the industry to see what elements were the most valuable.
Gaming feel: eSports get mistaken for sports
Thorough reserach and testing of symbology
Research
Questions and information I gather always to understand the project, client, customers and field were working on.
Is there an audience?
Yes, acording to Google search terms like “eSports”, “gaming” and “streaming” are in an uprising trend since 2012 with not many prospects to start slowing down.
eSports events also have gone from gathering a few hundred people to millions if we look at the streaming numbers. According to sportsvideo.org League of Legends World Championship Final had 23.04 Million Viewers last 2020. The Final was broadcasted in 16 languages and across 21 platforms.
Many big companies from the tech and gaming field have invested a lot to be part of the eSports movement. Those are big names like Blizzart, Logitech, One Plus. And brands like BMW or Audi are starting to use these plataforms to promote themselves aswell.
How is that audience?
(needs, demographics, income)
While the audience is getting more varied it is still dominated by mid – high income young men with a high interest in tech and gaming. Nonetheless we shouldn’t forget that this is spreading wildly between older people and women.
The key is the fact that everyone who is interested in eSports is interested in gaming because you need to understand and usually play the games are played to appreciate and follow what the pros are doing.
"League of Legends World Championship Final had 23.04 Million Viewers last 2020"
"It is a field that it has not been saturated yet."
Is there competition?
There’s a huge amount of competition since this is an uprising field. Almost every aspect is getting attention by many companies. The good news is that while it’s a high demand field it’s still a high offer field, meaning that there’r room for more projects and more interest. It is a field that it has not been saturated yet.
How is the competition?
In this state our main competition would be other starting teams, which is good because they face the same problems as us and will be a fair rivalry.
How about Stakeholders?
There are plenty of stakeholders that have to be accounted for. From gaming brands that want to sponsor teams, to non-gaming brands that wants to do the same. Other gaming partners like streaming services has to be taken in consideration aswell and the companies which make the games were competing on. It’s curcial to follow them tightly to make our bussiness desitions as quick and accurate as possible.
SWOT
Analysis of the strengths, weaknesses, oportunities and threats to see how the market will be and to be able to make the best strategy possible.
Strengths
• The strategy and research work makes us stronger than the competition which usually doesn’t do that. • Chris has very good conections so starting is easy in that regards • Our caring approach makes our team more appealing than other starting teams.
Weaknesses
• New team with little to no following in a competitive field. • Lack of economic resources so our payment rates are not high. • We have no access to high status sponsors or leagues.
Oportunities
• Uprising field with still room for more projects. • Uprising amount of interest from sponsors and brands. • Highly motivated players because it is a new field.
Threats
• Highly volatile market, things can change fast. • Unknown uprising trend, theres no knowledge to when this is going to end. • Highly dependant on stakeholders like game producing companies.
Brand identity
There’s some exercises I do with the client in order to understand and clarify how the brand is, how it wants to be, how the customers should be, what’s the brands value and so on. The exercise is made filling with words the question and then narrowing the results to 3 words maximun.
Customers
How would you describe your customers?
Passionate Respectful Supporting Emotional Sportsmanlike Loyal Playfull
Culture
How would your community describe you?
Professional Stable Commited Caring Reliable Durable Hardworker Humble Engaging
Voice
How do you sound to others?
Mighty Relentless Humble Simple Helping
Benefit
How do others feel after interacting with you?
Confident Understood Taken care of Exited Motivated
Value
What tangible impact do you have on others?
They are entertained They are motivated by us They have a team to be proud of
X-Factor
What makes you radically different?
The way the brand approach fanbase in a close and more intimate matter makes a very good conection with the people. We care a lot about the players and people we are working on to make sure everyone is comfortable and to make good relationships.
Customer profiles
The next exercise I do with the client is to clarify the customers through customer profiles; they are made up profiles that describe the ideal customer, how are they, what are their needs and so on. This creative exercise helps shaping the communication, the product and the brand identity
Brad
England - 18 years old
Student - Low income, few savings
Story
College student focused entirely on his studies. Whenever he has a little bit of time he spends it playing games with his friends online. He does like to follow some eSports like DOTA or CSGO because he wants to learn how the pros do their plays
Need
He has few time to spend and he need to know from the pros and how they do their stuff in order to emulate what they do.
Solutions
We can share just the important information so our social media doesn’t get cluttered by meaningless mesages and we help our players to stream and to communicate their brand aside their work with the team so they can reach better to their audience
Sara
German - 23 years old Player - Mid income
Story
Sara is a CSGO pro player and has been always from team to team trying to settle a little bit to find success and good teammates, but she is afraid taht she is not famous enough to land in a very good team.
Need
She needs stability and a team that provides her with a good level of competitino and some ensurance that this is going to be a a medium/long term relationship.
Solutions
We can provide not only for good competition but a good team enviroment with several coaches and players from her level to psycologist that will take care of her concerns and to help her with any kind of issue that may develop.
Noah
Portugal - 28 years old Writer - Mid income
Story
Noah is a journalist who is starting his career. He does find himself watching eSports since he doesn’t have enough time to play the games so this is a nice way to fill that gap.
He loves hearing their stories and feelign he is part of the oraganization, sometimes he wonders if eSports journalism would be something to get his feet on.
Need
He needs a team that he feels proud to be part of, he needs content and somewhat a way to watch the highlights of their favourite team so he van enjoy and follow the players without wasting too much time.
Solutions
We offer a variety of highlight videos and clips and keep the fanbase informed of everything that is going on with the team. Also we do like to share our emotions and share them with the community to create engagement.
Strategy
Strategy for me has to define a path to follow, what are the most important things to do to survive in the market and reach our goals
When it comes to strategy I take a look at the road ahead and what are the best options to proceed, step by step. This is done trough a 3 point process:
Revenue: Where will the money come from to make this a succesfull and economically sustaniable project
Awareness: How people will know about the project, how are we going to reach out to our selected target.
Efficiency: How can we improve our workflow, where are our pain points and what can we do to spend less money, be faster, be smarter or anticipate posible mistakes.
The exercise I make is filling a sheet where every item will be valued by its importance and accesibility, wether it’s easy or hard to implement, and the time it needs to be fullfilled. After that we’ll end up with the steps ahead organized and ready to take them.
The exercise I make is filling a sheet where every item will be valued by its importance and accesibilithy
Revenue
Where will the money come from?
Revenue exercise done to build the strategy of the brand CLICK TO ENLARGE
Awareness
How are we going to reach out to our target audience?
Awareness exercise done to build the strategy of the brand CLICK TO ENLARGE
EFFICIENCY
How can we do what we are doing better?
Efficiency exercise done to build the strategy of the brand CLICK TO ENLARGE
CONCLUTION
The conclution is to focus in the short term in participating and winning tournaments in order to get awareness and some money. Also working on merchandise is important aswell.
In the medium term we can focus on getting sponsors and doing advertising to strenght the revenue income into something more serious while collaborating with other teams.
Meanwhile twitch streamign is a good avenue that doesnt take too much effort and will bring awareness and some revenue.
"...medium term we can focus on getting sponsors and doing advertising to strenght the revenue"
Stylescapes & graphic language
Stylescapes are a low commitment – hight fidelity way to show the client how is the path were going to take.
Y learned this process with The Futur, an online educational brand focused on design & strategy
Once I started doing stylescapes I couldn’t work without them anymore. They are like moodboards, but way more usefull, with purpouse and one of the best ways to communicate with the client to work faster, safer and keeping the client happier. I have to give credit to The Futur, whom I learned from this concept.
Stylescapes are a low commitment – hight fidelity way to show the client how is the path were going to take. A selection of moodboards that tackle every aspect the Brand needs (typeface, colours, materials, personalities, mood, composition and so on. The client is presented with 3 or 4 very different stylescapes so he can point and choose what things are ringing for him and what are not. It is a way to guide how the work is going to be without commiting time and effort. This is done after all the branding and strategy done before.
Stylescapes are a low commitment - hight fidelity way to show the client how is the path were going to take.
"in this case I choose the mild, medium and spicy formula"
Stylescaspes can have very different aproaches, in this case I choose the mild, medium and spicy formula, where the first stylescape will be representing in a straightforward manner the concepts listed before, the last one will be a unnusual and extravagant way to represent those same concepts and the second one will be somewhat between the middle.
In this case the concepts that I have isolated to make this processs easier are the following:
- Gamer look
- Emotional
- Caring
- Mighty
- Motivating
- Connecting people
- Community
"Mild" Stylescape
This stylescape represents what the client should expect, this is the obvious and straightforward moodboard.
This is focused on being calming, friendly and caring. It has a youth appearance and plane colors to support that.
"Mild" Stylescape that represents what the client should expect CLICK TO ENLARGE
"Medium" Stylescape
This Stylescapes lives in between the mild one and the spicy one, another perspective close to what is expected but with a twist. In this situation it has shifted to cozy instead of friendly, it is a litle bit more mature and plays a lot withglowing effects to transitionate between colours. Also illustration is important here.
"Medium" Stylescape that represents that sits between the mild and the spicy one CLICK TO ENLARGE
"Spicy" Stylescape
This is the wild, the thing that is not expected but does still fit in the Brand. I chose to remove the friendly look and go for the harsh and proffesional appereance which was a very important concept for Chris . It is the most adult of the three and it’s as gamer as could get. Instead of plane colors or glowing transitions in this situation gradients is the way to go.
"Spicy" Stylescape. This is the wild one , the thing that is not expected but does still fit in the Brand. CLICK TO ENLARGE
Meeting with the client and conclusion
After showing the client the stylescapes to see which direction was the right one, the conclution was to keep the spicy one but with the typeface from the first.
Chris really liked the spicy one since it was the most proffesional and serious one, but the logo and type from the mid one was the most clean and was the fit that he was looking for.
After the Stylescapes are done and approved the rest is pretty straightforward. I just need to follow and adapt them to build a cohesive brand.
"After the Stylescapes are done and approved the rest is pretty straightforward."
Logotype & Symbol
The logotype as discussed before was made using the typeface selected from the first stylescape.
It has two versions, the extended one “kels.” and the icon “k.” it has a double meaning since “k” is very used in the gaming slur as a short version of “ok”.
Typeface
The typeface combination comes from the stylescape aswell, weightes where determined.
Quanelas pro for titles and Roboto for body text.
Quick mockup done to showcase how the visual language works CLICK TO ENLARGE
Colours
The color palette has been refined. I use the 60-30-10 rule, which means that there’s a main color that takes 60% of the space, secondary color to point out important information and gradients in this case that takes 30% of the space and the accent color that gives depth and flexibility to really make things stand out when needed taking the reminding 10%.
Important note, this color palette is designed to work on black background, when theres white background the main color has to be adjusted to #00e6a5
Gradients
The gradients used for the background and for future similar situations comes from black and goes to the main blue on the secondary color.
Secondary elements
The secondary elements that articulate the brand and which will cary with the emotional part are the supportive lines.
Based on the angle of the logotype to make a more cohesive image they will be used to add a layer of depth in the messages in order to show a better communication and insufflate emotions in the fan-base.
Using upward likes will show positive emotions or messages and downward will be negative emotions, like loosing a match or th edeparture of a player.
This will also work with the animation to enhance this effect.
Motion
In order to enhance the effect of the supportive lines they will be animated to show the emotion of the messages.
Moving upward and slow: Neutral messages
Moving upward and fast: Positive messages.
Moving downward: Negative messages, this is also highlighted with greyscale images and slowing the framerate of the animation, which gives the feeling that something is wrong and not smooth.
Positive messages example
Moving upward and fast. Used for positive messages like victory or welcoming a new member.
Negative messages example
Moving downward. Negative messages are also highlighted with greyscale images and slowing the framerate of the animation, which gives the feeling that something is wrong and not smooth.
