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CASE STUDY / PRODUCT REDESIGN

Draftsy

Reimagining a multiplayer sports gaming platform for the energy of American sports.

ROLE Solo Product Designer
SCOPE UX · Product · Motion · System
PLATFORM iOS · Android
STATUS Actively Onboarding
HERO VISUAL SHOWCASE
[SLOT: draftsy-hero-showcase]
ASSET: Full Width Hero Showcase 1920 × 1080 PX
01 / OVERVIEW

Overview

Draftsy is a multiplayer sports gaming platform built around three distinct games:

Draftsy

The flagship multiplayer draft experience with high-stakes.

Stacks on Stats

A statistics-driven gameplay centered on game data metrics.

Perfect Picks

A rapid team prediction and picking-focused experience.

I joined as the sole designer to rethink the product from the ground up: from its UX and information architecture to its visual identity, interaction patterns, motion language, gameplay, notifications, chat, and app-store presence.

The product had previously evolved around a more conventional SaaS-coded visual language in itsprevious iterations, while the founders wanted something fundamentally different.

They wanted Draftsy to feel vibrant, competitive, energetic, and unmistakably sports-driven, something that felt native to the visual culture surrounding American sports. My role was to translate that ambition into revamping the entire product's visual language.

02 / THE PROBLEM

The Problem

Draftsy's previous design language communicated "software." But the product itself was not really about software.

It was about sports, competition, players, picks, stats, rivalry, and entertainment.

The founders wanted the product to visually connect with the culture their users were already familiar with:

  • American sports broadcasts
  • Sports media graphics
  • TV & stadium scoreboards
  • Deep statistics & player analytics
  • Fantasy sports leagues
  • Sports betting interfaces
  • Team identities & franchise colors
  • Live broadcast overlays
  • Highlight graphics
"How do you make a digital product feel like it belongs to the world of American sports, without turning the product into a collection of disconnected sports clichés?"
03 / THE DESIGN DIRECTION

The Design Direction

The new direction was built around three guiding pillars:

01. VIBRANT INTERFACE

The interface should have energy. Color shouldn't simply indicate hierarchy. It should contribute to the feeling of competition, tension, familiarity and excitement across every screen the user goes through.

02. SPORT-FOCUSED

The visual language should feel familiar to people who consume American sports media, drawing cues from established mental models: scoreboards, stats, broadcasts, team graphics, and game cards.

03. EVER-EVOLVING
Sports culture constantly changes. New seasons, teams, players, games, moments, statistics, and stories create an environment that is never visually static. The product therefore needed a design language capable of evolving seamlessly with live content.

VISUAL CULTURE & INSPIRATION MOODBOARD
[SLOT: sports-culture-moodboard]
INSPIRATION: American Sports Culture Analysis 2880 × 1620 PX
04 / THE TRANSFORMATION

From SaaS to Sports

The most significant shift was moving away from the conventions of SaaS UI. The goal wasn't to make every screen "louder": it was to make every interaction feel more native to the product's world.

BEFORE / LEGACY SAAS
  • Neutral visual hierarchy
  • Software-oriented generic components
  • Restrained, timid color usage
  • Conventional standard cards
  • Functional, cold presentation
  • Minimal personality & static screens
AFTER / SPORTS NATIVE
  • Strong game identities & color systems
  • Sports-inspired broadcast graphics
  • Expressive high-contrast typography
  • High-energy compositions
  • Motion-driven reactive interactions
  • Richer statistical information hierarchy
LEGACY INTERFACE
[SLOT: saas-before-screen]
BEFORE: Conventional SaaS UI PREVIOUS VERSION
SPORTS NATIVE REDESIGN
[SLOT: sports-after-screen]
AFTER: Sports Native UI PRODUCTION DESIGN
05 / GAME IDENTITIES & GAMEPLAY

Three Games & Gameplay Mechanics

One of the central design challenges was that Draftsy isn't one game. It is a platform containing three different experiences. Each game needed to feel immediately distinguishable, while ensuring users never feel like they've opened a completely different application.

DRAFTSY / PURPLE
[SLOT: game-screen-draftsy]
GAME 01: DRAFTSY FLAGSHIP
STACKS ON STATS / BLUE
[SLOT: game-screen-stacks]
GAME 02: STACKS ON STATS
PERFECT PICKS / ORANGE
[SLOT: game-screen-picks]
GAME 03: PERFECT PICKS

The core gameplay experiences were redesigned across all three games. The interface constantly answers: What game am I in? Who am I playing with? Whose turn is it? What can I do? What happens next?

The design prioritizes state visibility and action clarity so players never feel lost during fast-paced competition.

06 / FIRST-TIME USER EXPERIENCE

Onboarding Flow

The first interaction with Draftsy needed to communicate the new personality immediately. The onboarding flow was redesigned to introduce the product, establish the visual language, and move users toward the multiplayer experience with minimal friction.

01. SPLASH / WELCOME
[SLOT: onboarding-splash]
ONBOARDING STEP 01
02. THREE GAMES INTRO
[SLOT: onboarding-three-games]
ONBOARDING STEP 02
03. PROFILE & PREFERENCES
[SLOT: onboarding-profile-creation]
ONBOARDING STEP 03
07 / VISUAL DESIGN

The Visual Language

The visual system draws inspiration from the visual vocabulary surrounding American sports. Not by copying broadcasts directly, but by borrowing familiar principles:

INFORMATION DENSITY

Sports audiences are accustomed to processing scores, statistics, rankings, player stats, and live updates quickly without cognitive friction.

STRONG COLOR IDENTITY

Teams and leagues use color to establish instant recognition. Draftsy uses the same principle at the game level across Purple, Blue, and Orange.

GRAPHIC ENERGY

The interface incorporates stronger compositions and visual moments instead of relying exclusively on conventional UI containers.

COMPETITIVE HIERARCHY

Important information needs to be visible immediately through high-contrast typography and clear action triggers or CTA buttons.

VISUAL VOCABULARY & ASSET SUITE
[SLOT: visual-tokens-palette]
DESIGN SYSTEM: Visual Palette & Identity Tokens 3840 × 2160 PX
08 / STORE PRESENCE

App Store & Play Store

The redesign extended beyond the application itself. I created the visual storytelling system for Draftsy's App Store and Play Store presence. The objective was to make the store presence feel like an extension of the new product identity, allowing users to understand the energy of Draftsy before downloading it.

STORE SCREENSHOT 01
[SLOT: store-screen-01]
STORE SCREENSHOT 02
[SLOT: store-screen-02]
STORE SCREENSHOT 03
[SLOT: store-screen-03]
STORE SCREENSHOT 04
[SLOT: store-screen-04]
STORE SCREENSHOT 05
[SLOT: store-screen-05]
STORE SCREENSHOT 06
[SLOT: store-screen-06]
09 / ROLE & IMPACT

My Role & Impact

I worked as the sole designer on the redesign, owning the entire experience from the earliest structural decisions through to final visual execution.

Rather than designing within an existing visual system, I helped define what the new system should be.

The redesign is currently being rolled out as Draftsy continues to onboard users and prepare for its next stage of growth.

Because the product is actively acquiring users and the company is preparing for a Series A fundraise, quantitative post-redesign impact metrics are being measured in real-time. Rather than manufacture metrics, the success of this project is evaluated through the transformation itself:

  • SaaS-oriented interface → Sports-native product language
  • One generic experience → Three distinct game identities
  • Static UI → Expressive interaction and motion
  • Feature-by-feature design → Unified, scalable product system

As adoption continues, the redesign provides a solid foundation for measuring improvements across user activation, daily engagement, game participation, player retention, and multiplayer activity.

10 / THE OUTCOME

The Outcome

Draftsy now has a visual and interaction system capable of growing with the product. The three games have their own identities. The platform has a common language.

Gameplay, notifications, chat, onboarding, account management, and marketing now operate within the same design system.

"Most importantly, the product no longer looks like software trying to host a sports game. It looks and behaves like a authentic sports product."
11 / REFLECTION

Reflection

The biggest lesson from Draftsy was that a visual redesign can sometimes be a product-positioning exercise disguised as UI design.

The founders weren't simply asking for brighter colors or better screens. They were asking for the product to communicate a different idea of itself.

That required looking outside traditional product design references and into the visual culture of the people who would actually use it. Sports broadcasts, fantasy platforms, statistics, team identities, competitive games, and media graphics became design references alongside conventional UX patterns.

The result was not a sports-themed SaaS interface. It was a product language built around the culture of competition itself.

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