Blizzard Entertainment · Scaling Design Across EMEA

Rich Media Overlay: an ad format I designed and A/B-tested against the incumbent.

A team that couldn’t scale by working harder

Campaigns, CRM, and web platforms across multiple game franchises, localized in 7 to 20 languages per launch. Demand grew with the business; the operating model hadn’t evolved to match.

The constraints were structural: fragmented workflows, routine production leaning on scarce development resources, and every campaign rebuilt by hand.

What we shipped

We designed player-facing products, live events and community platforms. I led the team, designed alongside it, and built the internal tools that let us handle the volume.

The character picker: class, level, and item level pulled from the player’s own roster, with the Horde and Alliance split running through the art direction.

A call to arms from your own avatar

We designed a win-back product for World of Warcraft: every lapsed player got a call to arms fronted by their own in-game character, then a page to build and share their own. A 200k budget, run against subscription and expansion revenue.

Three Play Store screenshots of the Gamescom 2018 visitor app: AR booth tour, stage calendar, and store catalog — The visitor app on the Play Store: AR booth tour, stage schedule, and store catalog. Localized in English and German.

An app for the world’s biggest gaming show

For Gamescom 2018 we designed the visitor app for iOS and Android, including an augmented-reality booth tour: a fixed show deadline, tested on the ground during the event.

The Blizzard Gamescom 2018 event site: hero with the show branding, and a livestream player with the stage schedule alongside it — The Gamescom 2018 hub, built to be read during the show rather than after it.

The show, for everyone not in Cologne

We designed the event site that ran alongside it: the livestream with a switchable camera, the stage schedule, the calendar, and the updates feed, in one place.

The Hearthstone Innkeeper Resources page: host navigation, a product update, and cards for the Fireside Companion guide, downloadable tavern signs, and event poster templates — Innkeeper Resources: built for the hosts running the events, inside the game’s own visual language.

Onboarding for the people running the events

We designed an onboarding product for Hearthstone Fireside Gathering hosts, shipped in 7 languages: the guide to running an event, personalised tavern signs, and the poster and artwork a host could download. Shaped by focus groups I prepared and led in the US and in Europe.

Localized marketing emails produced with the Email Builder — Email Builder output: localized eCRM emails, integrated into Salesforce.

An 8-hour job, turned into a system

Localizing one email took over eight hours, and only two designers could do it. I designed an internal tool that let any designer produce localized emails without touching code: 15+ emails in under two weeks, against more than a month before.

Restructure around outcomes

Structure and streams

I reorganized the design team around business outcomes into four delivery streams with defined ownership: Editorial & Localization, Creative Assets, Digital Labs, and Creative Marketing. Designers knew what they owned; stakeholders knew who to go to.

CRM and email campaign design — CRM and email campaign production: localized across multiple languages per launch.

Coordination and tooling

I introduced lightweight rituals that improved visibility without piling on process, and embedded an agency pool that absorbed demand peaks under shared standards, so peaks stopped costing headcount. The internal tools I built moved designer effort from repetitive production to decision-making.

A page builder showing a Warcraft III landing page and a documented design language — A shared page builder for localized, on-brand launch pages.

Internal design tooling and production systems — Internal tooling that moved designer effort from repetitive production to decision-making.