EXPANDING THE EXPERIENCE. SIMPLIFYING THE BRAND.
As Rocksmith+ expanded beyond guitar into piano, the brand needed to evolve with the product. I helped lead the creative evolution of its visual expression and marketing toolkit, creating a simpler, more modular system designed to work consistently across instruments, audiences, channels, and global teams.
Art Director
Ubisoft Global Publishing
Kris Santiago
Nomadic
Global Brand
UCS Project Management
Wideout Production Artists
Key Art, Lifestyle Photography, Modular Templates, Marketing Toolkit, Social, Paid Media, Retail, 3D / CGI
Rocksmith+ was becoming more than guitar.
As Rocksmith+ expanded its interactive music-learning experience to include piano alongside guitar, the brand needed to grow with it. The opportunity was bigger than adding a new instrument. We needed to simplify the visual language, incorporate new key art and lifestyle photography, and evolve the marketing toolkit so internal Ubisoft teams, agencies, and partners could represent a broader Rocksmith+ consistently.
More content didn't need to mean more complexity.
Piano introduced new key art, photography, instrument configurations, messaging, and marketing needs into an already established system. At the same time, we knew where the existing brand could become inconsistent when applied by different creative teams. Rather than simply adding more assets and rules, the challenge was to make the system easier to understand and use as the product itself became more complex.
Build flexibility into the brand.
The expansion gave us an opportunity to create a more modular brand system that could accommodate guitar, piano, lifestyle imagery, product demonstrations, promotions, and different messages without losing consistency. Because the toolkit would be used by internal Ubisoft teams and external agencies and partners, it needed enough structure to protect the brand while giving people enough flexibility to build from it.
Simplify the system. Expand what it can do.
Our approach was to reduce unnecessary visual complexity while increasing the system's flexibility. We simplified colour and graphic elements, created modular structures for different instruments and imagery, separated awareness creative from more product-focused conversion work, and designed practical guidance around how the brand should behave across channels and formats. The goal was not more rules. It was clearer decisions.
Turn the identity into a working system.
We integrated piano into the evolving key art and lifestyle photography while simplifying the visual language around it. The toolkit was expanded across guitar-only, piano-only and blended imagery, with practical applications for awareness and conversion, web, paid media, app stores, promotions, song messaging, social, retail, and video end cards. We also strengthened usage guidance and addressed formats where the existing system had historically been difficult to apply consistently.
Designing for people I wouldn't be there to direct.
A global toolkit has to work when the original creative team isn't in the room. My role extended beyond directing individual assets to helping translate the creative direction into a system other teams could confidently use. That meant anticipating where the brand might break, incorporating known pitfalls into clearer guidance, and creating examples that showed internal teams and external partners how to apply the system across different instruments, messages, channels, and formats.
One brand. More ways to play.
The evolved system gave Rocksmith+ a clearer foundation for introducing piano alongside guitar while reducing unnecessary complexity. Key art, lifestyle imagery, messaging, templates, channel applications, and usage guidance were brought together into a more cohesive toolkit designed to support consistent creative across internal teams and external partners.
- Simplified Visual Language
- Guitar + Piano Expression
- Modular Lifestyle System
- Updated Global Toolkit
- Awareness + Conversion Frameworks
- Multi-Channel Guidance
Scale isn't always about adding more.
Rocksmith+ reinforced something I continue to believe about systems thinking. As products grow, brands naturally become more complex, but the systems supporting them don't have to. Good systems find the essential pieces, make their relationships clear, and give people enough structure to confidently make the next decision.
“The system shouldn't show how much thinking went into it. It should make the next decision feel easier.”