WORKS
ABOUT ME
Who I am
Hi, I'm Nicole Lopez, and I’m a marketing and interactive designer! I’ve been working at Playdots, a mobile game company under Zynga and Take-Two Interactive, as a marketing designer. Before that, I was graduated from Rochester Institute of Technology in 2021 where I studied New Media Design with minors in the Japanese language as well as Game Design. I'm searching for a new full-time position in the field of design and am available to start in January 2023.
What I do
I have a strong passion for design, no matter the field. My primary goal is to create designs that make people happy! In other words, I want to design things that bring enjoyment to others by making things more usable, making things more fun, and of course, making things look more beautiful.
More about me
I am a total nerd: I love playing tabletop games, video games, and watching Japanese anime. I also enjoy singing both American pop and Japanese pop songs, so I'm always down for karaoke!
RESUME
OBJECTIVE
I am an enthusiastic designer currently seeking a full-time position in the field of design and am available to start at any time.
WORK EXPERIENCE
Marketing Design Contractor | Junior Marketing Designer
Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. | New York, NY
May 2019 - Nov 2019 | Aug 2021 - Jan 2023
Ideated and animated top-performing advertisements and other promotional materials for the mobile game application “Two Dots” as part of the Playdots Inc. marketing team under Zynga.
Graphic Design & Layout Moderator
Various Fanzines | Remote
Jan 2021 - Current
Assisting in the moderation and creation of promotional content such as logo and announcement graphics/animations as well as layout organization for various fan-produced collaborative fanzines among which include “Untamed: A FFXIV Creatures Zine” which had over 150+ pages and sold over 550 copies and “Poison Apple”, a fully-funded project on the crowd-funding website Kickstarter.
EDUCATION
New Media Design BFA
Rochester Institute of Technology | Rochester, NY
Aug 2016 - May 2021
Graduated with a BFA in New Media Design and Minored in Modern Language Japanese and Game Design. Held a GPA of 3.79 / 4.0 and was on the Dean’s List for 7 semesters.
ACTIVITIES
Various Committees Member
Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. | New York, NY
Aug 2021 - Jan 2023
Contributed ideas towards celebrating and spreading awareness of various cultures at the Playdots office in alignment with cultural holidays and months including hosting multiple "Mahjong Game Nights" as part of the Culture Committee.
Provided input and helped to represent the marketing team in regards to return-to-office protocols during the migration back to the Playdots office as part of the Return to Office Committee.
Assisted with the planning and execution of various Playdots company events as part of various event-planning committees.
Public Relations Officer | Vice President
RIT Game Symphony Orchestra Club | Rochester, NY
Sep 2018 - May 2020 | Aug 2020 - May 2021
Managed club social media accounts, planned fundraising activities, and led a team of over 10 designers in creating merchandise, posters, videos, and concert programs for events. | Assisted the club President with their duties, reserved rehearsal and event spaces, and filled in for any absent E-Board members.
SKILLS AND TOOLS
DESIGN
Adobe After Effects
Adobe Illustrator
Adobe InDesign
Adobe Photoshop
Figma
Maxon Cinema 4D
PRODUCTIVITY
Dropbox
G Suite
JIRA
Microsoft Office
Notion
PROGRAMMING
HTML
CSS
INTERESTS
Branding
Graphic Design
Interaction Design
Marketing Design
Motion Graphics
Print/Layout Design
UI/UX Design
Web Design
LANGUAGES
Native English
Conversational Japanese
TWO DOTS MOTION GRAPHIC ADVERTISEMENTS
Animating advertisements to convert new users to play the mobile game “Two Dots”.
PROJECT DETAILS
DESCRIPTION
Transform creative briefs into fully-animated advertisements for the mobile game “Two Dots” with the goal of attracting new players.
| CLIENT | TIMEFRAME | TYPE | PROGRAMS |
|---|---|---|---|
| Playdots | 2021 - 2023 | Motion Graphics, Marketing | Adobe After Effects, Adobe Illustrator, Figma |
INTRODUCTION
Dots was the mobile game studio under Zynga and Take-Two Interactive who created the freemium puzzle game “Two Dots” for mobile devices. As with any game, Two Dots needed to be advertised to a larger audience in order to convert new players to support the game.
MY ROLE & PURPOSE
As a Junior Marketing Designer, I was tasked with designing and animating advertisements for “Two Dots” with the hopes that the advertisements I created would cost-effectively reach new users who will spend money in-game.
APPROACH & PROCESS
The creative process for animating Two Dots creatives ran on a weekly cycle of the following:
The UA and Marketing Design teams brainstorm and discuss ideas for the upcoming creative production schedule.
UA Team writes briefs describing the goals of the creatives for the following week
Marketing Designers choose finished creative briefs from the previous week's brainstorm
Designers create an animation based on the guidelines of the brief
Designers post the creatives to the team channel for feedback (noted changes are made)
Designers upload and submit videos and thumbnails for the UA team to publish in live campaigns
During the creative ideation phase, I tried to brainstorm new ideas that had not yet been attempted in the same way in addition to ideas that iterated off of previous concepts that performed well in the past.
Some of my favorite creatives that I've animated explore character-focused ideas and themes of relaxation.
Displaying humanoid faces tends to resonate more with users, as generally seen by their usage on application icons, so we tested creatives that showcase Two Dot’s mascot character Emily.
One way we often promote Two Dots is as a way to destress, so we tried a creative that promotes relaxation with a copy that also challenges the intelligence of the viewer.
By taking a previously top-performing concept and applying a zen beach theme, we can keep the creative fresh and up-to-date with the season to help ease creative fatigue.
Some of the creatives that performed well included mixing and matching various concepts to create new iterations of top-performers.
While varying in execution between a simple, looping animation question, introduction cards with gameboard gameplay, and an explorative minigame puzzle, all of these creatives challenge the viewers brains and make them think.
These creatives also follow our best practices of asking a question in the copy placed above the gameplay, not being easily-solvable or not being solved correctly, and they also base their content on previously-explored and confirmed top-performing concepts and ideas (eg. circle puzzle).
Although creatives in only 4x5 aspect ratios are displayed above, we usually prepare creatives in a couple different aspect ratios to accommodate for various platforms (eg. Meta, Unity, etc.).Creatives tend to follow a similar storyboard: introduction (optional), main content, and end card. Thanks to our team's testing throughout the years, we found elements that tended to work better in advertisements. So, when designing and animating creatives, I was able to take our team's best practices into account and speed up the output process.
FANZINES PROMOTIONAL GRAPHICS
Marketing and laying out graphics for fan-made magazines celebrating various fandoms.
PROJECT DETAILS
DESCRIPTION
Design logos, announcement graphics and animations, and other promotional materials to market various fanzines in addition to laying out graphics for physical book printing. Also assist in the moderation of other contributors on the social communication platform Discord.
| CLIENT | TIMEFRAME | TYPE | PROGRAMS |
|---|---|---|---|
| Various Creators | 2021 - Current | Motion Graphics, Marketing, Print | Adobe After Effects, Adobe Illustrator, Figma |
INTRODUCTION
Fanzines are magazines produced by non-official and non-professional enthusiasts of a fandom (a community of fans of a particular person, subject, media, etc.) to be sold to other fans either for-profit or for non-profit organization donations. Fanzine teams tend to consist of a head moderator who leads the project and the moderator team, various other moderators who are in charge of specific tasks and leading specific sub-teams, and contributors who create the main contents of the zine and any merchandise sold alongside it.
MY ROLE & PURPOSE
Of the zines I’ve participated in, I have always been either a graphic design moderator who designs social posts ranging from assorted announcements to bundle graphics, a layout moderator who configures the digital and, potentially, print layouts of the zine, or a combination of the two. As the graphic design and layout moderator for the production of a fanzine, it is my role to create the marketing materials for the zine and also the zine itself.
APPROACH & PROCESS
There are certain graphics that every fanzine project produces, such as countdown graphics, contributor spotlight graphics, product bundle graphics.In approaching each graphic, I take into account both the design of the graphic as well as its usability, which includes attention level, readability, file size for uploading to social media websites.
In addition to being readable, announcements for time-sensitive events such as contributor applications and preorder timeframes need to be eye-catching.
Contributor spotlight graphics tend to feature a sample work made by the featured creator as well as short blurbs. This means that element placement is very important in order to accommodate for readability.
Overall, bundle graphics and merchandise spotlights display all of the products sold by the fanzine creators and highlight certain merchandise. It's nice to arrange everyone's works in a way that each item can shine, and it's also interesting coming up with different ways to display certain information (eg. multiples of an item or secret items).
Some fanzines request the creation of various promotion videos to celebrate certain milestones the project passes, such as the launch of preorders. Making sure all of the necessary information comes across within a certain timespan while also showing enough of the content to entice supporters without giving too much away is challenging, but I had fun being able to help promote everyone's beautiful works.
PERSONAL MANDALA ANIMATION
Looking inwards and designing a mandala in motion that represents myself.
PROJECT DETAILS
DESCRIPTION
Design and animate a mandala themed around myself.
| CLIENT | TIMEFRAME | TYPE | PROGRAMS |
|---|---|---|---|
| University Course | Spring 2019 | Motion Graphics | Adobe After Effects, Adobe Illustrator |
INTRODUCTION
A mandala is a layered geometric configuration of symbols that generally represents the spiritual journey. I was tasked with designing and animating a mandala inspired by myself.
MY ROLE & PURPOSE
As both the designer and the subject of the theme, I looked inwards and thought about who I am, and I took what represents and feels like me and formed them into colors and shapes.
APPROACH & PROCESS
I began by sketching out shapes that felt like me that I also liked, some of which included a rising/setting sun, a minimal key, various dots, and a semblance of a lotus flower, which is the meaning of my middle name.
To encapsulate the vibe I wanted the animation to emanate, I created a mood board that feels cute and clean, but with a pop of vibrant pink.
As for my style board, I decided on a soft typeface style and used warm colors. I chose rounded shapes and circles and put together what would become a semblance of the base of my final mandala.
Finally, when it came to animating, I moved, rotated, and resized the shapes in repeating patterns so that they would bloom outwards and shrink back in.
JUBEAT VER. 10 ANIMATION
Advertising the Japanese rhythm game Jubeat and designing an imagined 10th version of the software
PROJECT DETAILS
DESCRIPTION
Design a motion graphic animation celebrating the 9 previous versions of the Japanese rhythm arcade game “Jubeat” and create an original version 10 brand.
| CLIENT | TIMEFRAME | TYPE | PROGRAMS |
|---|---|---|---|
| University Course | Fall 2019 | 2023 | Motion Graphics | Adobe After Effects, Adobe Illustrator |
INTRODUCTION
Jubeat is a Japanese rhythm arcade game that, as of the original making of this project, has released nine different versions. I tasked myself with designing and animating an introduction video for Jubeat with a fake announcement for a personal imagining of version 10.
MY ROLE & PURPOSE
I wanted to design an eye-catching fake version 10 for Jubeat's brand and deliver it in such a way that it looks like it could be real.
APPROACH & PROCESS
In designing a new brand for what Jubeat version 10 could look like, I took inspiration from past versions of the game.
Previous Jubeat logos always took the iconic wordmark logo and added the version subtitle name with a theme applied.
I wanted Jubeat Spectra, which is themed around prisms and the spectrum of color and light, to be modern and eye-catching. Originally, I thought to use dark backgrounds with small pops of rainbow colors and a triangle icon to represent a glass prism, but the overall designs looked quite subdued and not very visually interesting.In the end, I opted for all-around very bright and colorful visuals with a background effect as though the viewer is inside the glass prism itself.
I wanted the animation to be presented in a way that looks like an official introduction video. To accomplish this, I referenced one of the official Jubeat start-up videos and emulated the warning and credit screens by using similar typefaces and hand-tracing shapes. I also took existing phrasing from previous advertisements and created minimalistic graphics and animations.
The second half of my animation consists of showcasing previous versions' logos before "announcing" my imaginary tenth version. It was fun watching how each version was animated and then re-animating each logo on my own. I also took what I learned from animating the previous logos and implemented similar ideas in my own logo animation.
ROCHESTER INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
GAME SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA BRANDING
Creating a new brand design for a university’s new game symphony orchestra club.
PROJECT DETAILS
DESCRIPTION
Design a logo and create brand guidelines for Rochester Institute of Technology’s student-run Game Symphony Orchestra Club.
| CLIENT | TIMEFRAME | TYPE | PROGRAMS |
|---|---|---|---|
| RIT GSO | Fall 2017 | Branding | Adobe Illustrator, Adobe InDesign |
INTRODUCTION
RIT Game Symphony Orchestra is a still active student-run orchestra club at Rochester Institute of Technology that plays music from video games. They began recruiting members at the beginning of the 2017-2018 academic year, but the club’s branding was virtually non-existent save for a logo. They were in dire need of a brand refresh.
MY ROLE & PURPOSE
Despite having not being a performing member of the club who also hadn't been elected as the Public Relations Officer until the following year, I took it upon myself to volunteer to create a brand for the club with my main objective being to redesign the club’s logo.
APPROACH & PROCESS
I compiled a list of other video game orchestra logos, and while many of them evoke the nostalgia of retro games via pixels, older game controllers, and specific game references, these type of logos might aim more towards a slightly older generation of gamers.
So, I opted towards a more modern look. I started by modernizing the original logo before deciding to play around with the idea of a game controller mixed with a violin. However, when I showed my initial designs to the co-founders of the club, my iterations were met with mixed reception.
In the end, I scrapped my initial designs completely in search of new inspiration, which I found within the power button of one of my video game consoles. With a new-found base for designing, I eventually decided on a minimalistic violin integrated into the power button symbol. And they loved it!
Through this project, I learned that sometimes, starting over fresh can be a good opportunity that paves the way for something even better.
BRAND STYLE GUIDE DECK
POCHI BIRD MERCHANDISE POSTER
Modeling a pochi bird coinpouch and designing a poster to advertise it.
PROJECT DETAILS
DESCRIPTION
Create a 3D Model of an item and design a promotional poster with the item as the focus.
| CLIENT | TIMEFRAME | TYPE | PROGRAMS |
|---|---|---|---|
| Univeristy Course | Fall 2020 | 3D Modeling | Adobe Photoshop, Cinema 4D |
INTRODUCTION
The "pochi bird case - chicken" is a small purse from company P+G's Pochi Friends case line. As my first big project working with 3D modeling, I challenged myself to model the chicken purse and to design a poster featuring it.
MY ROLE & PURPOSE
Most importantly, I wanted to make sure that my model looked like the purse. This meant approximating measurements and dimensions as well as color-picking and applying materials with the right aspects. As for the poster, I wanted to keep it simple and clean.
APPROACH & PROCESS
Establishing similar dimensions and sculpting the right shapes was challenging, but very rewarding when I was able to accomplish what I intended.
Poster-wise, I wanted to create a higher-end-looking design with sufficient breathing room around its elements. I played around with different angles and number of purses in addition to coin placement.After creating the first iteration of the poster and receiving feedback, I re-rendered the image with some different materials and under different lighting.
