Trackmania is an arcade racing game with a loyal but niche fanbase that doesn't have a ton of crossover with other competitive esports. It allows for unique customization options with their club system which meant that when Team Liquid entered the title, they had to be represented in the game. I was responsible for the look of the liveries & communication surrounding Trackmania.
As Team Liquid entered Trackmania we were in a position to present our brand to a fairly isolated niche of gaming fans in the arcade racing space, a space that has little crossover with the competitive titles we were already competing in.
This presented a great opportunity to introduce the brand in an exciting way with liveries that would be available for free for the public to use globally.
Our aim was to introduce ourselves in an endemic way with a level of investment that the fanbase of the game would appreciate, giving us a leg up in a new endeavor for
the company.
The Trackmania livery making community was also consulted during the process to make sure we gave the fans something they could
get behind.
Conceptually we ended up executing our final iteration based around liquid surface impact, with the alt livery embracing initial impact where the home and away kit were more related to the ripples on the surface with light variations in texture & pattern applications in waves. There are a ton of little nods to brand assets such as the manes & horse heads hidden in the different parts of the liveries but the main takeaway for all of these is that they are exciting to look at, brand compliant and leverage endemic language that the community is familiar with.
The other aspect of this project was public communication surrounding our activity in the title. We had to announce players, communicate that our livery was available, track performance in competitions, qualifications etc. with a limited availability to make player photography.
In order to still be able to create exciting graphics we landed on making a pit box & crew scene to be able to leverage in the making of different graphics, with the familiar avatar from the game receiving a little makeover to look cohesive with the brand.
The end result was a layered & pre-composited graphic that could be edited in figma, these templates were easily editable so our social team could independently of the graphics team create the posts at a moment’s notice
The coverage leveraged all of the liveries and successfully took the spotlight over in a moment where we did not have a way to gather player photography on short notice.
Incredibly designer that executed on our complex vision and arrived at an incredible brandable logo. Since working with him our logo has been displayed internationally and in-game both to the immediate recognition of our fans. It is a brand mark we are proud to stand behind and have represent us!
Hendrik has a great eye for detail and the ability to take a brief to new heights. In my collaborations with him he consistently delivered, and in many cases brought forward ideas that changed how we looked at the project overall. Hendrik is versatile, patient, and above all an excellent artist who'll elevate whatever mandate you throw at him.