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Ghost Detective

Client: Wooga

Role: Creative Lead, Motion & Visual Design

Role: Creative Lead,
Motion & Visual Design

Date: April 2022

Brand and visual identity for a new casual hidden object puzzle game.

Ghost Detective is a gorgeously illustrated hidden object search game. I helped create and shape the brand identity for all marketing touchpoints including print, digital and live events.

Challenge

The build of the game was already well underway when I joined the team, and prior to launch we needed to establish a visual identity treatment to apply over App Store assets, social media advertising, and classic print advertising. It needed to be energetic, engaging, and also capture the unique aesthetic of the game, but also had to be localised to work in across eleven different languages.

Solution

I worked closely with the marketing managers, game design and art teams, and a team of external freelancers to create a fully fleshed out set of assets, templates, and brand guidelines for use throughout throught the games lifetime.

Outcome

Ghost Detective launched to play on Netflix and Apple/Google Play Stores in Spring 2023 to a very warm reception and great reviews. It's currently rated at 4.6 out of 5 on the Apple Store

Typography

1 - Investigation

I used yellow police tape to emphasize the investigative nature of the game, alongside a youthful font for the feature word.

2 - Location

This treatment uses decorative elements from the game UI to tie in with the locations used in the game. I decided to use the sign artwork.

3 - Supernatural

The copy here is surrounded by ghostly fog and sparkles to highlight the supernatural aspects of the story.

The right treatment

One of the biggest challenges was finding a typography treatment that would be suitable for marketing materials. The tone needed to be fun and engaging, but also still fitting with the overall look and feel of the game. I started by attempting three different approaches for the treatment shown above. We settled on the Investigation theme with Supernatural as a secondary.

Before

Earlier versions used a relatively flat treatment using Greycliffe. This was a little too plain for use in ads and other marketing.

After

Changing the feature font to Francois One gave it some much needed personality, and the 3D effect helps to highlight and separate it from the rest of the copy.

Characters

Delivering the story

The game is character and relationship centric where the player is the protagonist and drives the story and unravels the mystery. The Ghost Detective story is a unique selling point and using the characters to bring it to life is key in the advertising and marketing materials produed.

Ad Creatives

What I've Learned

In the past, the design and marketing teams operated independently, and there was limited collaboration during the various stages of campaign development. I believed that by working together from the outset, we could streamline the process and reduce misunderstandings about ideas.

This project demonstrated to me that not only were my theories valid, but that combining our efforts to generate ideas resulted in much stronger outcomes. As a team, we were able to take these ideas even further than before.

Ghost Detective