Verses Branding

Building a new game's identity - from the
furthest reaches of the galaxy.

Challenge

I was hired as the first visual designer at Many Hands, the parent company of Verses. As the lead designer, I managed all visual production. Verses is a grid-based digital trading card game (TCG) on the Tezos blockchain that marries the deck building and collecting of Magic, Hearthstone or Pokemon with the placement strategy of Scrabble, Go, or Carcassonne. With the game in development, the initial product offering centers around the sale of NFTs to be used as cards in the game. How might we make a splash in the Crypto community and excite art collectors, game players, and crytpo enthusiasts alike? How might we unify different art styles and concepts?

Solution

Verses branding and public presence draws heavily on both the grid-based aspect of the game as well as on the game's theme of overlapping universes with distinct flavors and narratives. It's a marriage between space-age and papyrus, through the lens of a friendly machine, TINK 11,000.

Time

4 Months

Roles

Art Direction
Visual Design
Web Design
Motion Design

Skills

Typography
Branding
Layout
Motion Graphics

Tools

Illustrator
Figma
Photoshop
After Effects

Research Summary

The Verses art cards come from famous gaming artists, many of whom contributed to the earliest versions of Magic: the Gathering. The art styles and subjects are diverse, and we needed unifying branding and themes to tie everything together. Many NFTs are produced procedurally and quickly, while these art cards are high-quality sci-fi and fantasy pieces. The team wanted to highlight the art as much as possible, while bringing excitement to this new idea of NFTs with utility.

Process

Our team engaged in an extensive process to outline Verses’ defining characteristics. Using a word association technique, we generated adjectives that underscored the game’s personality and vision. From these adjectives, we defined several core values that would later inform our main concept; we felt that Verses was about Discovery, Gathering, Delightful, Refined, Crafted, Emergent, and Evocative. By deeply examining these words, we were able to start making design decisions.

Concept and Color

The branding exercises helped us define key characteristics. We defined a narrator, TINK 11,000, a being of light. Through TINK's robotic lenses, we view the overlap between the Verses over time and space. The brand colors are a take on a heat map, as one of the ways TINK might be viewing Earth or other beings.

Web

As a digital brand, Verses needs a strong web presence. The branded website must explain the concept of NFT trading cards, the game that is in production, as well as information about the artists and team. Social assets must highlight the art and appeal to different market segments. Initial marketing strategy included a takeover of the Brave Browser. Three full screen ads were displayed, breaking benchmark CTRs.

Brand Book

Verses' identity has been documented in a brand book, which comprehensively demonstrates how the brand should be presented across channels. The brand book ensures the proper execution of the brand expression.

Video

Content marketing is an important part of attracting an audience, and video has become a large aspect of that strategy. Defining video guidelines and fx to coordinate with branding and tone goals has been essential.

White Paper

Verses is putting out a white paper that explains the thought processes and decisions behind the game. This white paper needs to be readable and professional, and it is possible that funders would print the document (so it can't be all black!).
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