As part of an ongoing relationship with Riot Games we developed key art for the 2019 ‘Season Start’ campaign. The annually recurring campaign is focused on bringing veteran players back to the platform, driving engagement and introducing new league themes. The key message for the 2019 was ‘This is Why’. Everyone has their own reasons for playing League of Legends, and this is yours. The goal was to create bespoke key art assets that each depict a heroic moment for the in-game characters. Their unique strengths, weaponry, and even past history being the motivator within the heroic scene. Riot came to us for fresh thinking on how to present these ideals within the brand.

With such well established characters and lore they wanted striking images that could evoke a singular feeling amongst players and tie in to the key message of  ‘This is Why’. Drawing inspiration from sports to superheroes, we created several directions robust enough to work across print, social, and in-game platforms. We wanted to capture the rich backstories of each character as well as showcase their unique strengths in one evocative piece of key art. The secondary component was to ideate concepts for the Client Hub—the in-game homepage that features news, links to video content, and a countdown to the season start. We focused on concepts to integrate the Season Start key art with the established format of the Client Hub in a way that would function as a driver to the cinematic or other news or content but also brand it to the 2019 season.