Mobile Strike is an online game published by Machine Zone, which quickly became one of the highest grossing apps on any mobile platform. The number of estimated installs is as high as 100,000,000 worldwide on Android devices alone and has grossed over $1 billion dollars. The game was even featured in a memorable SuperBowl ad featuring Arnold Schwarzenegger.
I worked as a designer on the project, creating ad layouts for dozens of international campaigns. My contributions included 2D/3D design, concept art, animation, typography, and of course marketing.
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I created this tank in 3DS Studio Max as part of an in-game promotional giveaway. My only instructions were to create something “ominous and overpowering”, so I really went for it. This was a really fun assignment.
Each ad campaign typically required both static and animated versions. Animated ads were displayed as .gifs, so they needed to be fairly simple in scope, with as few frames as possible. Headlines were kept to a minimum, with concise, clear messaging. Our goal was to make the ads as colorful and eye-catching as possible, however more colors and motion also means larger file sizes. The biggest challenge was often finding ways to optimize the final deliverable down to very stringent size requirements for our ad partners, while maintaining its vibrancy and overall appeal.
Our budget afforded us the luxury of A/B testing variations of ad mockups in order to quickly evaluate click rate and other performance metrics. This was especially valuable since the ads were typically translated into many different languages. We learned that color palettes, typography and messaging that works well in one geographic location may not be as successful in another. It was a great learning experience.
