USAA Mascot Dash

Lead UI Designer

Time

1 month

Team

1 Lead UI Designer, 2 Designers, 1 Developer

Skills

UI Design, Interaction Design, Animation, Game Design, Mentoring

Deliverables

Pixel Assets, Web Game UI

OVERVIEW

I led the agency team in establishing pixel art design standards and developed reusable animation templates

The ad agency 160over90 was contracted by USAA to create a small game for an online sweepstakes. The in-house designers were unfamiliar with creating retro pixel art graphics, so I was brought onboard to help the team create the UI and assets. I collaborated with a small group of designers and and a developer to ship this project.

IMPACT

Design + Development

Shipped sweepstakes game reached 3k+ USAA users.

Interaction Design

Worked alongside developer to implement the interactions of the characters and inputs.

Game Design

Animated the main mascot and created a template for the other designers. Designed all UI elements.

Mentorship

Taught other designers and developer how to use Aseprite for pixel art.

THE PRODUCT

We delivered a snappy pixel game that shows the mascots and key monuments of the three branches of the US military

I chose to include important monuments such as Camp LeJeune, the Navy-Marine Corps Stadium, and the National Museum of the Marine Corps to honor USAA’s veteran clients. The goal of the game is for you to collect as many coins as possible in order to participate in the sweepstakes!

Because it was a limited time sweepstakes, the website for the game is no longer up. However, you can still view the official promo here

MY DESIGN CONTRIBUTION

I taught a small team of designers how to create and animate pixel art and fine-tuned the animations with the developer

The design team lacked experience in creating production-ready pixel art. I taught pixel art creation in Aseprite and Photoshop and trained the designers on animation basics.


To keep things consistent, I created reusable templates for complex animations like walk cycles and jumps and designed the primary goat mascot as a reference for others to build on. I also owned the design of UI assets and environments, establishing cohesion across the game.


I partnered closely with the senior developer to refine interactions and animations. Additionally, I guided the team on translating real-world environments into pixel art while maintaining clarity at low resolutions.

We went through several rounds of revisions as pixel art can be tricky to create as it requires designing at a lower resolution.

AFTERWORD

This was a super fun project from start to finish. I feel very lucky to have worked with such a kind and talented group of people. This was a project where I felt like I was able to combine my love of retro video games, teaching design and illustration, and making cool things!