The Largest re-creation of a fictional universe on the internet.

Hats I wore: Co-Project Manager, UI Design Lead, Editor, Builder

Westeroscraft is the re-creation of the continent of Westeros from the 'A Song of Ice and Fire' book series, and HBO's Game of Thrones. It is the internet's largest re-creation of a fictional universe with a map the size of the greater Los Angeles area. I have been involved with the project first for three years as a Builder, a year as terrain Editor/Terraformer, a Server Moderator, a Graphic Designer, and of course a UX/UI Designer. Obviously not all at once, I have been promoted several times over the years. I've also volunteered to help out in new capacities as I have added to my skill-set. But more on that later...  Here is a selection of some of our more well known builds. 

Maesters Link Graphic Design

Below are a series of link icons that I made as part of Westeroscraft website's trophy collection. Each trophy is awarded to users upon certain achievements for example: 100 likes for forum posts. The links are modeled after links on a Maester's chain, and each color represents a different material that the link is made out of. Given that it wasn't a particularly difficult icon to design, I decided to do 4 total versions of it to give my boss a few options.

Custom Launcher Re-Design

After completing the UXDI at GA in New York, I began to use my new UX skills to help out with the re-design of the server's custom launcher. The server has used a custom launcher for a variety of reasons, most notably because of our custom blocks/textures which set us apart from all other Creative Minecraft servers. The previous launcher is several years old and the UI needed a general "freshening up" job to make it look more modern and to improve user experience when launching the game. As part of a team of three, I took on the role of lead visual designer working closely with our lead developer throughout the project.  

The Old Launcher UI

New Launcher UI

Design Goals

One of my main goals with the new launcher was to show off some of our finest work by providing a friendly welcoming visual for our users. Additionally we had a few bugs to fix with the old launcher.

For instance we wanted to get rid of our website from within our launcher. Whilst we were assessing the common problems of the old launcher, we couldn't find sufficient evidence that our users preferred to access the website through our launcher, thereby freeing up a majority of real estate for other visuals & features.