The Sims

Electronic Arts approached me to create some video templates for their marketing team. What started off as a simple project quickly expanded into a much larger ask that would effect the sims brand across all current and future campaigns.

Approach

My approach was simple. Create a flexible motion design toolkit. I’d achieve this by working closely with the E.A team. I audited, discovered, researched, developed and delivered the final product over several months.

Process

The first thing I did was create a timeline to set clear expectations from the beginning. Once confirmed I began my process of auditing the past 5 years of video campaigns into simple spreadsheets. This spreadsheet helped standardize and evolve their motion language. It also helped define their visual style across campaigns. During this process we defined new colors and language for each game package.

Next I interviewed the video team to find any additional holes or opportunities in their day to day workflow. I researched their limitations while trying to push the brand as far into the future as I possibly could. I worked directly with the design and video team to develop this new toolkit.

Lastly I delivered all the templates in their preferred working method. As a bonus I included detailed screen share recordings that walk through exactly how to use each part of the templates.

Technical

Because The Sims is a global brand it brought a few unique technical challenges and limitations. All text needed to be translated with a company wide internal tool. This tool eliminated any complex text animators and most expressions. I still managed to get creative and push the boundaries.

The next big technical ask was to have every design and animation assigned to their own unique color system that’s associated with different campaigns. I developed a easy way to quickly do this.

Then lastly I needed to create everything in 4 different sizes. 4x5, 1x1, 9x16 ad 16x9.