EA Games
Heike Woltmann and Marcus Lepie, as the freelance creative directors, cooperated with defcom as the leading agency in the summer of 2003 to craft the sales pitch for the complete overhaul and relaunch of the Central European website of Electronic Arts (EA). A new concept in terms of content, visual aspects and function was developed and, with the technological help of our technology partner Minkenberg Medien, implemented in an intensive three-month project phase. The work of Heike Woltmann and Marcus Lepie was complemented by the production of a wide range of visual assets for the individual EA products and creation of a style guide for further development of the website, keeping the design and functionality intact.
EA Centerpages
At the time that this website was in development, EA had four individual brands. Games were subdivided into one of four different areas: EA Games, EA Sports, EA Sports Big, and EA Partners. Each of the brands had a distinct color range for the logo's design. Therefore we decided early on to assign each brand a tailor-made color scheme that permeated the entire website design. This decision resulted in substantially more work in development and later in the maintenance of the content. Yet the client was prepared to go down this path with a smile ...
EA Drafts
Two preliminary sketches for the project. We did some free association to generate ideas before getting started and we all agreed that we wanted to present games like we would movies. Keywords like "large screen" and "spatial depth" were brought up. To transmit the feeling of floating we tried here to create a kind of panel that we could use to serve the content. This detail let our thoughts take flight even though we didn’t have an overall concept. And the planning for the interface in the next stage was even inspired by it. In our work we do not approach the grand scheme of things by starting with the details. For this reason the process of designing the EA website was a special situation.
EA Website: Early Design Stages
The next steps were coordinated online in a team effort. Although the project members all live and work in Berlin, it was a real challenge to overcome the distance between the districts of Mitte, Kreuzberg, and Prenzlauer Berg on a daily basis.
At this early stage our approach to planning the interface was very atmospheric and not based on precise ideas for the necessary elements to navigate the site, present the content, or design the hyperlink elements. The design that emerged, which can be recognized quite easily, and the initial steps toward a cinematic feel can be seen here.
