Bases Loaded
As the design lead, I directed the visual strategy and built a scalable design system to market a dedicated slate of live games on the Roku Sports Channel. The goal was to drive viewership and elevate the fan experience within the Roku OS and across digital marketing touchpoints.
The Creative Brief: Connecting with the Next Generation
To capture a younger demographic for Major League Baseball (MLB), the creative strategy leaned heavily into the dynamic visual language of manga and anime. I directed and executed a high-energy visual style, integrating signature genre elements to bring the excitement of the diamond to life:
Dynamic Action Elements: Incorporating custom electricity graphics and stylized speedlines to convey motion and intensity.
Manga-Inspired Framing: Utilizing comic panels and halftone textures to structure player imagery and narrative focus.
The Operational Challenge: Scale & Production Bottlenecks
While the creative direction was highly successful visually, the operational reality of localized sports marketing quickly created a massive production bottleneck. For a single game, the team needed to output dozens of unique asset variations across the Roku TV OS and digital channels. Multiplied across a 16-game slate, the asset count quickly snowballed into hundreds of deliverables.
The initial pipeline reliance on manual asset creation led to a sluggish feedback loop, threatening deadlines and straining the production team.
The Solution: Engineering a Seamless Production System
Recognizing that great design is only as good as its ability to scale, I stepped in to completely re-engineer our workflow. I built a comprehensive, automated design system within Figma optimized for production speed:
Master Components & Auto-Layout: Standardized manga panel structures, speedline overlays, and typography into rigid but flexible components that adapted to variable player text and aspect ratios instantly.
Streamlined Feedback Loops: By housing the entire matrix in a unified Figma ecosystem, stakeholder reviews happened directly on the source files, eliminating version-control confusion.
The Result: The production pipeline transformed overnight. Review cycles were cut drastically, asset generation time plummeted, and the production team was empowered to deploy hundreds of premium, stylized assets seamlessly ahead of schedule.
Along the way, the team requested an alternate design direction to capture the high-octane energy of an animation concept provided by MLB. The second I saw the brief, my mind went straight to the dynamic world of manga and comic book panels. It was a creative sandbox I couldn't wait to jump into!
I designed the static visual framework from the ground up, and then handed the keys over to our incredible video and motion team, spearheaded by the fantastic Austin Hepps. They took my static layouts and built an absolutely electric video ad around them. Seeing how they brought my design language to life in full motion was an absolute blast—it was one of those projects where creative synergy just completely clicked!
Disclaimer:
This case study was created solely for portfolio purposes to showcase my design process and contributions. All visuals, logos, and assets are the property of Roku and Major League Baseball.
