DREST
Taste on the Leaderboard
Art Direction
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UX/UI Design
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Visual Asset Production
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Stakeholder Management
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Dev Governance
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Art Direction + UX/UI Design + Visual Asset Production + Stakeholder Management + Dev Governance +
THE NORTH STAR
“Fashion has always been competitive - who wore it best, who got front row, who made the cover. The studio brought that social tension into the game.”
THE BRIEF
The Vision & Challenge
As Creative and Design Director, I led the structural evolution of Drest’s platform from a fragmented series of user sessions into a highly retentive, luxury-aligned ecosystem that serves its customers and brings new insights to its B2B ventures.
While the platform’s individual styling challenges were highly engaging, the core experience remained entirely short and episodic. Players operated in a vacuum, with no social tension to build long-term engagement and retention, no league to climb, and no rival to beat. Nothing accumulated, and a critical, high-value segment of the accessible demographic market that is beauty and jewellery obsessed and was underserved. The interface lacked the structural depth required to make player progression feel earned or to integrate premium cosmetics partnerships seamlessly.
Leveraging the mandate for deeper community dynamics as our strategic catalyst, my role was to steer product design and business strategy. I collaborated with senior stakeholders and individual contributors across the tech and content teams to architect a multi-tiered ecosystem where every interface, mechanic, and brand touchpoint connected to a single, felt journey.
THE WORK
Three Mechanics, One Connected System
Progression Leagues
01
Embedding leaderboard progression into a system-wide status that defines player identity and spend.
By integrating a persistent tier system into a pre-existing gaming ecosystem, I spearheaded the design and creative framework that balanced two intersecting worlds: core mobile gaming mechanics and high-end lifestyle aesthetics. My objective was to protect the brand integrity of both industries, injecting deep competitive incentives without cheapening the premium space or over-simplifying the gameplay loop.
I directed the UX/UI design and visual assets to communicate competitive rank and player identity seamlessly, ensuring the intervention felt native yet deeply compelling. By weaving this value proposition directly into the global player portrait, the design is engineered to create positive friction while remaining entirely unobtrusive to core gameplay. From calculated onboarding gates to seamless navigation across status tracking, incentivised purchasing, and end-of-week reward loops, the entire ecosystem is completely transparent, instinctive, and elegant for our global demographic.
Time Limited Races
02
Injecting Real Time Social Urgency and High Velocity Monetisation Loops.
By directing the UXUI design and asset production of this feature, we built a mini competitive framework that aggregates a user's live session into time-limited competitive cohorts. This easy to use and instant - play interface visualised real time positioning metrics and progression that tracked the user by their active live game play, transforming standard actions into competitive high stakes and instant gratifying sprints. By making the design and competitive destination simple to understand, it was purposely designed to elevate the psychological cost of dropping behind.
We successfully extended single-session length to yield longer gameplay sessions and monetisation moments, all to guarantee the user a place at the podium finish.
The ‘Close Up’ Mode
03
Amplifying High-Margin Cosmetics and Luxury Brand Partnerships
Originally, we had one mode of gameplay via full-body avatar crops, which masked the visual impact of content such as jewellery and cosmetic assets, rendering premium, high-margin categories invisible to players and brands. Acting as the vital bridge between the technical architecture, product and content production teams, I orchestrated the structural logic and visual execution. This structural and visual shift introduced specialised hand-pose selections, nuanced asset layering and the ability to apply more specific content. By resolving critical technical friction points such as the canvas cropping, viewport resolution degradation, UI obstructions and asset masking anomalies, we unlocked a canvas for premium beauty and jewellery brand sponsorships, driving direct monetisation through focused, gesture-driven user expression.
The concept narrative of the "Digital Press Pass" The aesthetic is built on the concept of "The Exclusive Invite." We move beyond standard gaming interfaces to replicate the visual and social codes of a high-end luxury press event. The "vibe" is one of curated discovery— mimicking the feeling of an editor or top-tier client being courted by a brand. Every interaction is designed to feel like a "behind-the-velvet-rope" experience, providing intimate access to new collections before they hit the general public.
THE IMPACT
Features That Deliver
