Guild Wars 2 Community and Partnership
Skills
Graphic design, Illustration / Digital painting (Adobe Photoshop / Illustrator), UI / UX design and prototyping (HTML5 / CSS3, jQuery).
Role
Creative Partner (2019-2020), Graphic designer, Illustrator, UI / UX designer.
Year
2014 – 2020
The Origin
For about 2 years, I was involved in the conception and design of various graphic assets for a French Guild Wars 2 community website.
Since the game’s release in 2012 I have been fascinated by its art style and imagery. Which is why I was really excited to be the community’s graphic designer. My tasks were to improve the UI of the website and forum, and provide images to advertise the guild’s activities and new Guild Wars 2 content. The assets included icons, buttons, banners, infographics, backgrounds and forum posts.
In October 2019, I had the opportunity to join the Creative branch of ArenaNet’s Partner Programme. As a Creative Partner, I was designing various digital art pieces sponsored by ArenaNet that revolve around Guild Wars 2 and its content.
Guild Wars 2 Unofficial Collectible Card Game
One of the most ambitious projects of this community was an unofficial collectible card game. Inspired by other games like Hearthstone, GWENT or Might & Magic: Duel of Champions, this game was meant to be designed and developped for the community only and playable via the website.
The concept was to take NPCs from the game, players from the guild, skills, spells, weapons or creatures and turn them into cards. They would be divided into types, ranks and classes, made visible by the use of different colour schemes and designs (frame surrounding the artwork).
While some members were working on the cards’ content and overall game design and rules, I created an interactive prototype showcasing the animation of a card being drawn from a deck.
The Community website
In order to mimic the game’s art style, I created a brush in Illustrator that I could use and reuse to emulate the rough strokes visible in the game’s official artworks and in-game interface.
Since the brush was a vector image, I was able to scale it without losing quality, change its colours, hues and blending mode in Photoshop to fit any background.
To make those images, I cut out many official Guild Wars 2 artworks and in-game screenshots to create various montages and compositions. The idea was to stay true to the game’s look and feel while creating a recognisable brand for the guild, and add a bit of fun to it.
I also had to take into account the width constraint of the website’s theme and make the most of the limited space provided by the forum’s layout. Some of the these images were actually entire forum posts advertising the guild’s PvE or PvP activities and contests.
By far my favourite project I had the opportunity to work on!
Guild Wars 2 Official Guild Emblem Contest
In 2015, Arenanet launched a guild emblem design contest to promote the first expansion pack for Guild Wars 2 – Heart of Thorns. The five winners would see their respective entries added to the game for all guilds.
I was honoured to be a finalist in this contest, and as of the 27th of August 2019 my entry was added to the game.
See the emblem on flickr.
Guild Wars 2 is the property of ArenaNet, LLC. Most of the artworks and characters used as card illustrations are the property of their respective owners.
