IGN Ent. • 2019-Present
IGN Youtube Redesign + Strategy
Role(s): Lead Designer, Creative Strategy, Art Director
For many years the IGN youtube channel has been a leader in the industry in subscriber and viewership counts. But something was always lacking and it was a consistent visual look across all of its output when it came to the look of our thumbnails. There was previously no distinct strategy in place for why we made the thumbnails the way we did and we wanted to change that and implement one that made sure the moment you see a thumbnail on youtube you thought "oh thats an IGN video" before your brain could even read the channel name or anything else
My Responsibilities:
• Thumbnail redesign strategy/execution
• Promotional design strategy/execution
• Staff training
• Style definitions and guidelines
We did lots of research into what made each successful youtube channel work when it came to their visual approach and in the end we found a few key findings that we applied.
Our biggest tenants were consistent typography, a strong visual reference point (color, graphic element, styling etc) and the use of a very short and impactful title matched with NO MORE than 1-3 characters/objects in frame at once.
There was an initial set of about 10 template types that I designed that captured about 80% of the videos we produced. Once these were established and signed off on i then trained our non-designers at the company how they worked and how they could easily export thumbnails that looked high class without the effort needed for custom design every time
early design ideas for the new thumbs
a different typographic heavy exploration
Finding the red sticker execution that defines the current style took many different routes to get to. Some that leaned more into graphic shapes mixed with typography and others leaning very heavily on typography as the star and the imagery being more of a co-star.
I collaborated with my then partner in design Gian Cruz to develop the final sticker look but the initial approach to bold typography and strong character focus was birthed in these early explorations
comparing old and new
One of the biggest successes of this whole project to me was that I and the team involved was able to create something that achieved our visual and brand goals but at the same time still felt like it was IGN's own identity now being established on youtube.
You can see in this simple comparison alone how the new approach achieved an elevated presentation of information that could now be utilized in a templated way
a favorite example of a thumbnail in the new style
the initial launch set of thumbnail templates i made
With such a large redesign we launched with an intentionally small number of templates that could accompany about 80% or so of IGN's usual output (about 10-25 videos per day) so that while we weren't hitting every thumbnail with a new look, the majority of our output would be in this new look and feel.
these initial templates were quickly modified and expanded on to accommodate the needs of different shows, clips, trailers, gameplay and so many other instances where we tested the limits of our template
the older look with a one off approach to most thumbnails
our new unified look
Before we launched this redesign, as i have mentioned above, our youtube presence felt far too scatter brained and directionless. With the launch and implementation of our new style it was incredible to compare the two eras now looking back
This project proved to be one of my my proud in my career for its success across the board in bringing IGN's youtube presence up to par with the industry leading presence we had at the time.
our new unified look
Before we launched this redesign, as i have mentioned above, our youtube presence felt far too scatter brained and directionless. With the launch and implementation of our new style it was incredible to compare the two eras now looking back
This project proved to be one of my my proud in my career for its success across the board in bringing IGN's youtube presence up to par with the industry leading presence we had at the time.
The thumbnail design slack channel
A key aspect of this entire relaunch and redesign was that the templates we gave out needed to be easily used by IGN staff that weren't designers by trade. My first step in achieving a look that kept things consistent was by holding training meetings of 4-8 people who might make thumbnails for IGN at some point. I would walk them through the general philosophy of the redesign and the core principles and then do a quick tutorial on how to make a basic thumbnail
This is where the slack channel came into play. I started #thumbnails-design and invited everyone who was involved in thumbnail creation on the editorial team, about 60+ people or so. Through this channel they could come and post here with questions on the design and guidelines and more importantly people would post thumbnails for approval by the designers at IGN so they could be posted live and assured for quality by a design resource