Magic: The Gathering (MTG) is a trading card and digital collectible card game that has well over an estimated 30 million players worldwide and growing steadily every year. While classically a paper trading card game, it branched out into the digital game world with Magic: The Gathering Online (MTGO) in 2002. While MTGO currently still has an estimated 300K active players, it is used primarily by Professional Magic players and has had trouble gaining newer players due to its outdated interface and lack of flashy animations and VFX.
In 2009 Wizards of the Coast, the company that created MTG, launched a second digital MTG game called Duels of the Planeswalkers. When I joined Wizards of the Coast in June of 2016, the game was in full-swing and in need of a Digital Artist and Designer to help with both a backlog of work including illustration and motion graphics.
In April of 2017, Duels of the Planeswalkers released it’s final expansion and I moved internally to the aforementioned Magic Online. I helped with digital art, splash pages, web elements, and UI concepts before I eventually was tasked with concepting a digital facelift on the dated client. This concept got the intention of the Art Director of a newly formed team which would eventually become Magic: The Gathering Arena. I joined the team as an Artist and (at the time) - the sole UI Designer.
With the help of many people on the team, MTGA launched it’s beta game in September of 2018 on PC to record numbers and fantastic reviews and has gone on to be one of Wizards of the Coast’s most successful digital products to date. It released to mobile platforms (iOS and Android) in March of 2021.
“Welcome the Challenge.”
The catalog of things I’ve worked on at Wizards of the Coast is massive and ever-growing, so I’ll be focusing strictly on work done on Arena.
Branding
I had the honor of concepting and creating the official logo for Arena. As I was considering the direction I wanted to go with creating this, I knew that I wanted something that could be easily recognizable as an official Magic: The Gathering product, yet also uniquely different from the existing Magic products. This was the final result.
Dark and light versions of the “secondary” logo for Arena.
Promo cards found in paper Magic boosters.
Official Arena keyart (one of many character pieces)
Booster Pack Design
In the early days of Arena, I concepted the in-game booster packs. We wanted them to feel familiar and similar to the packs that are in the real world, but the cost and quantity of cards differed, so we want to make sure they were distinctly different as well.
I’ve designed every booster pack since Arena launched.
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Wildcard Design
In Arena, there’s a few different ways to get new cards. You can win them in events, purchase bundles, buy packs, or if you want to get a specific card you can “craft” them by spending a Wildcard. These Wildcards can be earned from opening packs or in rare occasions won in events or granted by the development team as seasonal gifts. Players can then spend these for cards that are of the same “rarity” as said Wildcard ranging from Common up though Uncommon, Rare, and finally Mythic Rare.
I concepted and created the official, in-game Wildcards seen below.
As I was concepting what these wildcards should look like, one of the main components I needed to consider was iconography. This icon/symbol would show up in many places including in navigation so it needed to be unique and meaningful. Since by definition these cards could be redeemed for “any” card, it brought to mind one of the most iconic (and expensive) cards in Magic history: the Black Lotus.
Using this lotus flower as a springboard I incorporated Magic’s official logo, the Planeswalker symbol, and thus was born Arena’s official wildcard icon.
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Featured Images
On the main homepage of Arena there is a large billboard-style section that is for Featured image. This is used for advertising items in the in-game Store, Announcements, and Featured Events. Often I custom make these images (in contrast to using existing art in use in the game itself.) Below you’ll find examples of some of these as well as an example of the process.
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(Note that in the video above, I’m clicking through the carousel - it’s normally on a slower auto-progression)
I took the original card (Arena version) and edited the character to break frame.
This is the original card art. In the final image below you can see how I extended the art horizontally by painting additional content on the sides.
Final image (the grey background on top 1/4 will be transparent. Note the extension of the background from the original card art and additional cards with characters breaking frame.
In-Game Presentation
Additional Examples
Custom Illustrations & Design - Avatars
Most of the assets created on Arena make use of existing MTG art of which there are literally tens of thousands of unique card illustrations alone, not including marketing pieces; so why not! However, there are times where I’ve had the privilege of creating art from scratch.
Illustration for “Eternal Army” avatar for War of the Spark
Custom Illustrations & Design - Events
Arena often runs unique events that we want to stand out from the traditional MTG formats and I concept and illustrate custom art for these events. At other times assets will be created via manipulating existing art with the addition of custom supporting icons and reward assets.
Custom "postcard" designs for an event called "Zendikar: World Tour"
Event art in context
Stained glass artwork for War of the Spark "Story Series" - Five pieces of art plus emblem card-art
The "Arena Open" - Event art, logo and UI
(Featured on Forbes.com)
User Interface & Experience Design (UI) and (UX)
I helped design the core foundation of the UI in Arena in it’s early concept stages. Over time I designed under various Art Directors and Leads in many different parts of the game including navigation, the in-game Store, gameplay, reward presentations, and much more.
In-Game Store SKUs
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"Mastery Pass" - Includes many unique assets utilizing 2D and 3D assets as well as VFX, animations, and more
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