Sam Thompson
Dead Nice Studio
Principal UI/UX Designer / Co-Founder @ Dead Nice Studio - 8+ years of experience
Coming from an animation background, Sam has worked on IPs such as Call of Duty and Blood & Truth, creating bold and user friendly UI systems.
Passionate about all things kawaii and horror movies.
Sam Thompson is speaking at the following session/s
Interface as Identity: Designing UI That Complements the Brand
UI and branding are often treated like separate jobs. Branding frames the game from the outside and sets expectations. UI is what happens once you’re inside, where those expectations turn into experience.
UI isn’t only about clarity and function. It is a visual language players learn through repetition, and it carries tone, perspective, and intent through structure, typography, spacing, motion, and density. Long before a logo is refined or a trailer is cut, the UI is already shaping how the game feels.
This talk explores how interface decisions influence identity, how branding later reacts to what the UI has already made real, and how to design the two so they support each other instead of pulling apart.
We’ll look at familiar examples where UI choices become part of the game’s voice, and cases where the outside promise and inside experience don’t match. The goal isn’t to make UI look like marketing. It’s to build a shared voice: the same intention expressed clearly in two different contexts.
You’ll leave with a simple framework and checklist you can use early in development, even on small teams.
Session Takeaway
- A simple framework for aligning UI and branding from early development
- How to define a shared anchor and one consistent signal players recognize anywhere
- How to adapt style when direction shifts without rebuilding everything
Session speakers
