Video Game Artist

Someone recently sent me this link and I was reminded of the gratifying experience of trying to figure out a style for our UI. It had to both feel like a Guitar Hero game and have a visual identity that was pure Van Halen. The tricky part was that VH doesn’t have much in the way of ‘brand’.  Me and two UI artists had a day of just floundering, throwing sketches at a wall with nothing really sticking. So we grabbed a bunch of VH swag, sat in a room, and started identifying elements that could be used for various UI roles. We chose iconography for moving bits, menu backgrounds, selection highlights, transition elements…it was a blast. Once we had these pieces we mocked up some screens to see if our thinking was sound, made a few tweaks to the plan, and bam! After maybe three days we had it. It was a good thing too because it was a very crunchy project.