In-Game Assets
Role: Creative Direction, Art Direction, Illustration, Design
Tools Used: Photoshop, Figma
Context
During my time at Team Liquid I have had the opportunity to help bring the organization’s brand directly into several major video games through official in-game cosmetics. These projects included a VALORANT player card, League of Legends emotes, Overwatch cosmetic assets, EAFC kit, and Dota 2 sprays and wallpapers.
Unlike traditional marketing assets, these items live permanently inside the games themselves. Each project required close collaboration with both external artists and game developers to ensure that the final assets fit within each title’s visual style while still representing Team Liquid’s identity.
Creative Direction
In these projects, my role focused on art direction. I sourced and collaborated with professional artists, developing creative briefs that included moodboards, thumbnail sketches, and visual references to clearly communicate the desired direction.
Because every game has its own art style and technical constraints, the creative challenge was translating the Team Liquid brand into forms that felt authentic within each game’s visual ecosystem. Generative AI proved to be a valuable tool throughout these projects, allowing me to rapidly test various concepts and ideas.
Execution
Once artists began production, I guided their work through iterative feedback and overpainting to refine compositions, character expressions, and stylistic details.
Throughout development I helped navigate internal approvals at Team Liquid as well as external approvals from game studios, ensuring that each asset met both creative expectations and technical requirements before release.
To ensure a polished final product, I often handled the final refinements myself. Balancing outsourcing work and direct intervention allowed me to maximize productivity while guaranteeing each in-game asset was perfected.
Results
Although each game required a different visual approach, the final assets consistently integrated Team Liquid’s identity into the visual language of each title.
The final results are hugely varied, spanning incredibly detailed artwork to silly memes or in-jokes for our fans. The overarching goal was to drive sales and brand awareness, with each project requiring deep research into the community of each game to determine what would be most appealing.
Impact
Team Liquid’s in-game assets have received a lot of praise over the years, particularly from our fans who love having an opportunity to show off their fandom in-game.
One of the League of Legends emotes released through this process became the best-selling esports emote in the game’s history, demonstrating the effectiveness of the creative direction and the strong connection between the assets and the fanbase.
These projects were an opportunity to work closely with talented artists and major game studios while guiding the creative process from concept to final implementation.