- Client: Electronic Arts
- Project: In-game UI Design and Branding
- Services: Creative, Branding, User Experience
- Platform: Xbox 360, PS3
- Design:
A new vision for the world’s largest video game publisher
Electronic Arts (EA), the world's leading independent developer and publisher of interactive entertainment software, was in the market for ideas that could transform its EA Sports brand—updating, unifying and redesigning menus and navigation. Schematic delivered a vision piece featuring sophisticated 3D navigation and a bold new international brand that invites the whole world to play.
This piece offers compelling evidence of Schematic’s primary strength—our creativity.
Going global
Over the past 15 years, EA has created game versions of all major sports: football, basketball, hockey and soccer. Of these, FIFA Soccer is far and away the top seller, reflecting a global market for EA games that transcends the company’s original North American focus. Because of this sales shift, EA's old “red, white and blue” logo now seemed too American (and years behind in terms of design). And as EA games move to High Definition (HD) versions, the old logo would appear even more dated and unworldly.
Let there be light
We took our creative cue from the world of sports: specifically, night games in stadiums and the drama of pre-game light shows. In our vision piece, a camera swirls around a basketball player practicing in an empty black space. As the camera moves, the area lights up to reveal that he’s in an arena, and the arena’s wall panels fill with images and full-motion video of NBA highlights.
From the initial animation, the piece then moves to a menu system in which the camera moves in different directions (left, right) to reveal different menu options (EA, ESPN, and On-Line). From there a user can choose a game mode, or, when they select a team, they choose the squad from a 3D grid system where team jerseys are brought from the background into the foreground.