Yuugado Sportsbook Visuals
June 2023
Yuugado is an online casino marketed to the Japanese public, branded to appeal to the local aesthetic. They launched a Sportsbook vertical in 2022 leading to a series of explorations focused not only on Yuugado’s aesthetic and how it can progress in the future but also on how it can accommodate the introduction of Sportsbook, as the brand brief suggested.
The chosen approach was heavily inspired by the dynamic ink paintings of a traditional Japanese art style called Sumi-e [墨絵]. It lends itself perfectly to the movements you’d find in any sport, it is a perfect way to mimic movement when an image needs to be static.The brush strokes create a new element of dynamism to the graphic and help the visuals feel routed in Japanese aesthetics.
onsite banners for the Sportsbook verticalIn 2023 we were tasked with evolving the sportsbook aesthetic to cater for showing more facial features of real athletes due to signing on brand ambassadors.
I worked with my team’s senior illustrator to explore different approaches to this evolution. My idea was to stick to the inkwash treatment but make use of closer camera angles to justify detail in the face.
graphics created by my team’s senior illustratorIt was important to me that we found a solution that maximised on time, given that not everyone in the Design team was an illustrator, we needed an approach that everyone could execute.
I created an Adobe Photoshop action to break down real images of athletes into lineart, which we can then add inkwash brush strokes on top of.