The challenge
SERVICES AT A GLANCE
Visual identity
Design language system
When EA approached us to create key art and design language for a game where chance rules and fate lies in the roll of the dice, we obviously responded with: Let’s roll! Lost in Random is a rich, detailed world where fairytale characters and board game dynamics pull you through six challenging realms to free kingdom and kin from an evil queen.
For the game’s key art, we partnered with an international team (EA, Zoink, and Mighty Canvas) to consolidate the fairytale world into a single image that captures not only the depth of the amazing characters and environments, but the tenacity and strength of the main character tasked to survive it.
The insight
We began with a deep-dive into the world of Random to understand the hero characters, environments, and gameplay. We fell in love with the look and feel of the game, channeled our inner Tim Burton, and realized conceptually that the key art needed the kitchen sink without being kitchen… sinkish.
The Solution
To sculpt the game’s story into a piece of art, we moved quickly upfront with iterative sketches to lock on the concept and keyed in on the protagonist and the struggles she must overcome. We then partnered with an amazing team of illustrators tasked to incorporate an enormous amount of characters and environments into a single image. This resulted in leaning into a more painterly, impressionistic style for backgrounds that seamlessly increased fidelity for the hero characters. Color was used not only to define the emotional journey that the hero takes but also to layer the six realms of Random and pull the eye from the main character all the way back to the Queen. We were able to capture the Queen’s evil influence within the Lost in Random logo so that it functioned well as a stand-alone piece.
To create supporting design language for the myriad of storytelling and marketing visuals, we began dissecting the game imagery to uncover symbols, colors, and textures that could serve as ornamental accents. We then built a kit-of-parts that included animated logos, framing elements, CTAs, transitions, lower thirds, and ornamental glyphs.
The impact
The end result was a work of art that captured emotion through brush strokes—optimized and ready to take on the gauntlet of crops and ratios across modern marketing channels. The supporting design language enabled teams across the globe to imbue the world of Random into a wide variety of audience touchpoints with ‘non-random’ stylistic consistency.
Lost in Random debuted at EA Play, garnered major buzz, and picked up a win for Best Indie Game category at Gamescom 2021.
