Role: Design Lead
Project Type: Website Concept
As a leader in esports media, The Daily Dot sought to capitalize on esports' cultural momentum by creating a dedicated site for esports news. Our goal was to build a site that would be a destination for an underserved audience, one that was hungry for the kind of comprehensive coverage given to major sports. We also wanted to help legitimize an industry that has seen tremendous growth in just the last few years.
The first step to realizing this vision was to create a proof of concept, a robust mock-up that we could shop around for funding and sponsorship. Our goal was to show that esports deserved a home that would rival any other major sports media outlet in features and quality.
Introducing The OP.
logotype inspiration
homepage
article page (with pullquote)
video page
team page
fantasy draft
User Experience
Reaching for high standards was the only way that we could achieve our goals and compete with the major players in the sports media industry. We had to treat esports in the same way ESPN treats football. I conducted an audit of other sports media sites, identifying the key elements that we would need to incorporate into our site: live scores; a customizable homepage; teams, schedules, and stats; video content; a fantasy platform.
Fantasy is a rapidly growing aspect of the esports industry, but there isn't yet a standard model for how these teams are built or how these leagues are managed. As someone that hasn't played fantasy sports in years, the most difficult part was figuring out how a fantasy esports page would look. There is a lot of information and user interaction to consider, so creating an appropriate hierarchy was of utmost importance.
fantasy draft - sketches
The first drafts of the site's homepage and the team page were simple, laying out the elements in a glorified wireframe.
homepage - low fidelity wireframe
team page - low fidelity wireframe
Visual Design
Once the hierarchy was sound and all the right elements were in place, I fleshed out the style, adding additional visual elements to help the design speak in a more video game-oriented vocabulary.
color options