Tanya had the unenviable task of taking over management of all content creation when our former lead left after 5 years. The deep end of the pool is not an adequate metaphor for all of the responsibilities she had to pick up on a product that was updated monthly. In addition to being a terrific designer and production artist, she had to become a UIX expert, master our pretty unique art pipeline, and as we scaled she had to build and train and manage a network of contractors and coordinate and review deliveries coming in every month. Suffice it to say that we never missed a date. She has a rare balance of departmental management skills, hands on production and a great eye for design. I can’t recommend her highly enough.
A simple way to explain TimePlay: it’s an interactive game app where people play against each other on their phones to win prizes. Simply walk into the theatre, log into your TimePlay app, select your Auditorium, and you’re in. The main game ‘stage’ is the screen, where you can see the overall outcome and game play. Individual game play is scaled smaller and personalized on your smartphone.
CONCEPT:
Because smartphones and WiFi had become so capable, TimePlay wanted to branch out. And TimePlay Sports was a great way to expand into other arenas. Literally. The idea was to have multiple trivia games played on the big screen in major sports arenas. Play sports trivia during halftime in the arena, or at your favorite sports bar.
NAME AND BRANDING:
To start off, we needed a name. I had pretty much everyone in the company come up with ideas. Names like Time Sports, TimeTriv, ArenaTime, and Sports Crew were bandied about. My Creative Director, the COO and I came to the conclusion that simple was best: TimePlay Sports.
Next were the logo ideas. Since Timeplay already has a logo, we needed a way to make ‘Sports’ look, well, sporty. My team and I came up with quite a few ideas, I narrowed them down to a couple I really liked and presented them to the Creative Director and the COO.
1st Pass:
THE FINAL LOGO:
Then came the overall look and feel. To get this, we believed having a slick intro would be a good way to also come up with branding. We already had the name and the logo as a jumping off point. The Creative Director and I brainstormed an idea, which gave me a few more ideas. I worked on a couple while I had other members of my team storyboarding out the remaining pitches.
Final Three Ideas:
It became obvious that the ‘World of screens’ pitch was best. Having multiple screens was a great way to keep things open-ended for any further branching. This worked well because we already had NHL, NBA, and NFL on board.
FINAL INTRO:
MARKETING:
My junior designer created a couple of teasers to play in the Real Sports bar up in Toronto.
TEASER:
The final intro and branding were finalized after a month or so. Below is a culmination of all the effort: Intro, Prizing, Transitions, multiple games, even Sponsored branding has been used.
WHOLE SHEBANG:
Total time from inception to completion was about 3 months.
I worked with a talented group of people. If you’re interested, their links are below:
Pitch work: Kendrick Tu
Intro: Jeff L. Fuller
Overall help: Chris Atkins
