2013 Webby Award Winner for Best Game (Tablet & All Other Devices) – ESPN Fantasy Football iPad App

I am very happy to announce that the Fantasy Football iPad application that I designed won a prestigious Webby award. I worked hand in hand with our development team to take a pre-existing Fantasy Football UI that existed for our desktop and refine it and make it it more logical and mobile friendly. The product itself took quite awhile to develop, but it will lay the foundation for Fantasy Sports UX for the future.

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ESPN FANTASY SPORTS NAMED BEST GAMES (TABLET & ALL OTHER DEVICES) IN THE 17th ANNUAL WEBBY AWARDS;

ESPN Fantasy Football App Tops the Shortlist for International Awards Honoring Best of Web;

Ceremony Will Be Available on Watch.WebbyAwards.com at 9 a.m. on Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Bristol, CT— [May 7, 2013] – ESPN Fantasy Sports announced today that it has been named the Best [category] [website, online film & video, mobile & app, advertisement or social] in the 17th Annual Webby Awards. Hailed as the “Internet’s highest honor” by The New York Times, The Webby Awards, presented by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences (IADAS), is the leading international award honoring excellence on the Internet. The IADAS, which nominates and selects The Webby Awards Winners, is comprised of web industry experts, including media mogul Arianna Huffington, Skype CEO Tony Bates, Mozilla CEO and Chair Mitchell Baker, Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom, mobile-phone inventor Martin Cooper, and StumbleUpon founder Garrett Camp.

“ESPN Fantasy Sports has set the standard for innovation and creativity on the Internet,” said David-Michel Davies, Executive Director of The Webby Awards. “This award is a testament to the skill, ingenuity, and vision of its creators.”

ESPN Fantasy Sports will be honored at the star-studded ceremony on Tuesday, May 21, 2013 at Cipriani Wall Street in New York City, where winners will have an opportunity to deliver one of The Webby Awards’ famous 5-Word Speeches. Highlights from last year’s 5-Word Speeches include: Pinterest’s “Pinterest loves you Ryan Gosling”; Bjork’s “A.E.I.O.U”; and Holocaust survivor Tibor Sands for The United States Holocaust Museum ”Thank you for remembering me.” The show will be hosted by critically-acclaimed stand-up comedian, writer and actor, Patton Oswalt. Beginning at 9 a.m. on Wednesday, May 22, 2013, fans can watch the show in HD at watch.webbyawards.com. A full list of both The Webby Awards and People’s Voice Winners can be found at winners.webbyawards.com.

ABOUT ESPN FANTASY SPORTS

Play fantasy football, baseball, basketball, hockey and sports trivia with us! For all product support issues please e-mail espncustomercare@espn.com or call 1-888-549-3776 (from 8am to 1am EST). http://www.espnfantasy.com/

ABOUT THE WEBBY AWARDS:

Hailed as the “Internet’s highest honor” by The New York Times, The Webby Awards is the leading international award honoring excellence on the Internet, including Websites, Interactive Advertising & Media, Online Film & Video, Mobile & Apps, and Social. Established in 1996, this year’s Webbys received over 11,000 entries from all 50 states and over 60 countries worldwide this year. The Webby Awards is presented by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences (IADAS). Sponsors and Partners of The Webby Awards include: Microsoft, Google+, Citibank, Twitter, Vitamin T, Quantcast, MailChimp, Yext, Engine Yard, Funny or Die, MLB Advanced Media, Mashable, Business Insider, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Area17, Forsman & Bodenfors and Guardian News and Media.

Creating a Mobile Game Plan to Working with Large Brands

2:45 – 3:45

Creating a Mobile Game Plan to Working with Large Brands

In this talk Matt will talk about the challenge of working with large scale brands like ESPN (and some of Matt’s other clients).

Matt’s had over 16 years of experience with large brand, Matt’s encountered potential issues you need overcome and consider when putting them into the mobile space from a content and execution perspective.

Matt will also go into the challenges responsive design and other popular design trends could pose for large scale companies and I will use my new FFL iPad app as an example of how to solve those problems.

Visit the Conference Site For More Details

Here is an exploration into my part of the ESPNFC design logo process. Ultimately they went with another logo, but I feel that the time that went into researching and exploring the logos below was well spent. I also thought it might be fruitful for younger designers to see what a basic process of creating a logo in a large company looks like.

The original challenge was to make a logo that had a Global feel to it rather than a typical “American” look that you would find in most logos. ESPNFC is ESPN’s new brand for all of their Soccer efforts from around the globe, so it was important to have a more international feel to the logo. Because of that I tried to mix an exploration of organic shapes, simple marks and something that could just stand with the “ESPN” mark with it was accompanied by it or not.

One of my personal objectives whenever it comes to sports logos is to make sure to have nice thick shapes that stand strong at even the smallest sizes. I especially want to make sure that any spaces in and around the logo have plenty of room to increase and decrease in size without becoming unreadable. One of the most important elements in a good logo is making sure that there is plenty of care taken in every stroke and all of the weights of every shape. Now that Mobile is perhaps one of the biggest drives of communication, this concept is more important than ever.

As with most projects you’ll see that overtime we became simpler and simpler and mostly focused on just doing black and white examples to make sure the shape itself was very strong and iconic. In general the group wanted to stay away from shields due to the limitations it can create later, but I put some in along our journey to just show what it could look like based on our calls and meetings.

Round 1

This round was very open and was really just defining a starting point to see what we liked and what we didn’t like. Even though it is Raw, you can see some foundational elements carry through the whole process here.

Round 2

This round was mostly about refining some of the marks that went over well in the first round and adding some new looks that people were thinking about in the first round and didn’t see.

Round 3

This round we focus completely on black and white and really tried to just keep refining it to a simpler and simpler look.

Round 4

This round was my last shot in the process. I like what I came up with but unfortunately the group went in another direction. To only sad part is you have these great marks that you like, but they just sort of fade off into the either. Maybe I can repurpose some of these elements in some Soccer minigame somewhere down the line. Just kidding… not really

Make sure to make plans to get to Atlanta, GA this October to catch me in my first ever appearance as a speaker discussing my thoughts on Mobile Design. The conference runs from October 19th-20th and I am scheduled to speak on Saturday the 20th. If you’re lucky I may just freeze up completely which would be worth the price of Registration itself.

Visit Remix South For More Information »

What Is Remix South?

Remix South is a conference for designers and developers, created by designers and developers just like you. We’ve got tracks and sessions in UX, Web, Mobile, Metro, and Future Tech lead by some of our industry’s best and most experienced speakers.

Remix South, LLC is a conference run solely by local Atlanta designers and developers. We were inspired by the idea of MIX, to create a conference that brings designers and developers together to create the future of the web. While we dig Microsoft, our end goal is to bring designers and developers together, regardless of platform.

We are very proud to have the logo we designed for Kennedy Catholic to be imprinted on their brand new gym floor!

Earlier this year we went contacted by The College of Notre Dame of Maryland to help them transition to their new standing as a University. The name of the school changed to “Notre Dame of Maryland University”. In partnership with the new name the school was looking to make some adjustments to their athletic mark as well. Sadly after weeks if working with the school and having some good success, the project was tabled in favor of something more in line with what they were currently using. However, we are very proud of the project contribution from our end so I wanted to post this as an example of the kind of work we can do.

Introducing the all new Louisiana College Wildcats logo for the 2011 season! The concept behind the logo was very simple; create an identity and brand for the athletic department to distinguish itself from all other programs in the American Southwest Conference.

The logo was slowly introduced as part of the 2011 promotional materials for the fall sports, but in time the logo will be integrated fully as part of the school athletic identity.

NFL Hall of Famer Marshall Faulk and his partner Nicole Bradley created the 8NINE Agency to give athletes the proper guidance on how to lead their careers and establish their outside interests as well. The 8Nine Agency selected Walk Design to help them design and launch a website that allow them to house all of there social media endeavor’s as well as give them a strong presence online to continue growing as a new company. This website is phase one of their online plan and so far the feedback has been terrific.

About 8NINE

Our philanthropy-based agency utilizes our network of Athletes, Individuals, Organizations, Corporations, and Legends to create partnerships and provide opportunities for our clients that provide professional, personal and philanthropic development.

Our programs and mentorship consists of the combined components of Player Development, Business Development, and Personal Development. Through education, motivation, and inspiration we believe that each of us can reach our full potential.

8NINE is dedicated to developing healthier, happier, more passionate human beings. We believe that when we are the very best version of us, and living our lives with purpose and passion, we can truly become legendary.

Walk Design was selected by Jackrabbit Design to help create a logo for Jordan’s Furniture in Boston. The logo is called “The Big Check” and it is for a promotion with the Boston Bruins that if anyone buys furniture from their store throughout the season and the Bruins win the Stanley Cup again, they get there furniture for free! It’s a really exciting promotion and we were honored to be apart of it. Living in the New England and having access to the Bruins it has been great to see how much publicity the campaign and logo has received so far. They even had a complete takeover of the Boston.com homepage to kickstart the campaign! Another great part of the campaign was wrapping a Zamboni (the popular ice resurfacer) with the logo and having it on the ice at the Boston Garden.

View The Promotion Online Here Now

Take a look at some of the logo applications below: