The Overview
Define the overall art direction for the Visions of Mana campaign, establishing a cohesive creative vision that reintroduces the franchise to modern audiences while honoring its legacy. As the first new mainline action RPG in the Mana series in nearly two decades, the goal was to shape a campaign that captured the series’ signature sense of wonder, adventure, and elemental magic, while signaling a meaningful evolution forward.
The art direction needed to guide the tone, composition, and visual storytelling across all marketing touchpoints—ensuring consistency and emotional resonance across social, digital, and performance-driven formats.
The Challenge
The Mana series is known for its whimsical, painterly aesthetic and deeply nostalgic appeal, which can be difficult to translate into modern, performance-driven marketing.
Preserve the richness and charm of the world while ensuring clarity, hierarchy, and readability across small-scale digital placements.
Elevate the art direction to feel contemporary and cinematic without losing the charm and lightness that define the franchise.
The Impact
The resulting campaign delivered a cohesive and elevated art direction that successfully reintroduced Visions of Mana to a new generation while resonating with longtime fans. By balancing nostalgic elements with a more modern, structured visual approach, the campaign created a unified presence across social and digital platforms. The art direction helped position the title as both a continuation of a beloved series and a fresh entry in today’s action RPG landscape, supporting a wide range of campaign assets with consistency and visual impact.
Executive Creative Director : Ricardo Mireles
Producer: Caroline Wu Bonti
Sr Creative Designer : Martin Nguyen
Sr. Motion Designer : Anthony Ricciardi
Sr. Video Editor : Daniel Ness
Sr Production Artist : Ken Murayama
Production Artist : Cindy Huber
Courtesy of Square Enix
For Visions of Mana, I developed the visual identity for the marketing campaign, creating a cohesive system that translated the game’s vibrant, whimsical world into a scalable design language across social, digital, video, and promotional touchpoints.
Drawing from the series’ signature painterly style, organic forms, and elemental themes, I established frameworks for composition, color, and typography that balanced expressive world-building with clarity and performance. This approach allowed the identity to flex across a high volume of assets—from social graphics to banner ads—while maintaining consistency and capturing the sense of wonder and adventure that defines the Mana franchise.
01
–
Visual Identity
EXAMPLES UNDER CONSTRUCTIONThe steel case packaging was a rare development that elevated the physical product into a premium, collectible experience. The approach focused on creating a bespoke visual composition tailored specifically for the format—leveraging the white plate, refined detailing, and a balanced use of negative space to ensure the design translated seamlessly onto metal.
Every element was intentionally crafted to enhance both shelf presence and tactile appeal, resulting in a piece that stood apart from standard packaging treatments. The final design was widely recognized by fans and praised as one of the strongest steel case executions within Square Enix, setting a benchmark for future collector-focused packaging.
02
–
Steel Case
EXAMPLES UNDER CONSTRUCTIONDeveloped a range of social graphics and banner ads that were built from a cohesive design system that could scale across multiple touchpoints. Each asset was designed with performance in mind, ensuring clarity across varying formats and sizes while maintaining a consistent visual tone. This approach enabled efficient adaptation across platforms, supporting a high volume of content while delivering a unified and engaging campaign presence.
03
–
Digital Campaign Assets
