Arcane season 2 | social Creative
art direction, graphic design
May 2024 - January 2025
In May of 2024 I joined the entertainment team at We Are Social as an art director, and immediately jumped into work on the social campaign for the second (and final season) of the Netflix series Arcane, produced by Riot Games and French animation studio Fortiche. The show is based on the popular online game League Of Legends, expanding on the lore of the game’s playable characters (known in-game as “Champions”).
The team at We Are Social was tasked by our client, Riot Games, to build on the success of the immensely popular season 1, excite die-hard fans of the show (and games), expand the fanbase, drive fans of the show to play League, promote the many musical artists featured in Season 2, support a variety merch drops (including Blu-Rays, vinyl, and a makeup collaboration with Fenty), and generally create badass, award winning creative. Whew!
This campaign was a massive undertaking for the WAS team, and I remain extremely proud of the work we did. I was responsible for developing concepts and overseeing the execution of every piece of creative. I worked closely with my Associate Creative Director as well as a small but mighty team of motion/static designers and editors, creating style frames and storyboards to provide direction for the finished product. In many cases I was responsible for executional design alongside my art direction responsibilities. What results is truly a labor of love from everyone involved, as you can see in the creative examples to follow.
Created at We Are Social for Riot Games.
Reigniting The Fandom
In the lead-up to season 2, we developed a number of assets to support the release of several Season 1 merch items: a suite of special edition Blu-Rays, a Season 1 soundtrack vinyl, and art book. In these early creative pieces I developed a look and feel with the creative team that would bring the Arcane visual style to social: film burns and scratches, graffiti, quick cuts, and high-energy transitions.
Season 1 Blu-Ray Carousel
This was the first asset we created in this campaign, so I wanted to make a splash with something really eye-catching that felt at home in the world of Arcane. We took a lot of cues from the visual style of the show, using custom film scratch animations and illustrated elements, as well as high energy transitions and effects to match the visual tone of the show.
Below are the additional statics we created for the remainder of the carousel.
Season 1 Art Book
Building Excitement For Season 2
Motion Posters
The creative team at Fortiche created a series of beautiful posters for Season 2. To amplify these posters on social, I developed a concept to animate the static posters using subtle motion to highlight characters, draw attention to easter eggs, or add emotional impact to Fortiche’s already amazing illustrations.
This process involved separating key art files into layers, with some repainting and cleanup to create clean character or background “plates,” and working closely with a motion designer (shoutout to Hana Jacobsen for animating all 13 posters) to provide direction on the animation.
The animated posters we created were posted on the League Of Legends TikTok account.
Character Posters
Countdown Graphics
The Music Of Arcane
Music is an enormous part of the Riot Games ecosystem, from League of Legends, to Valorant and—naturally—to Arcane. Both seasons of Arcane boast soundtracks featuring dozens of artists across a variety of genres that have contributed original songs for Arcane. Over the course of the Season 2 campaign, Riot Games premiered a number of these songs in their trailers, and the creative team at We Are Social was responsible for developing bespoke assets to announce the release of songs by artists including Ashnikko, Twenty One Pilots, Stray Kids, Young Miko & Tom Morello, D4VD, and Marcus King.
In-Season Creative
Season 2 of Arcane was released in three 3-episode “acts” over the course of 3 weeks in November. Each act had its own pre-launch/post launch phase leading up to and following the release date. Long story short, we had some busy days during the month of November. During this time I worked extremely hands-on with the creative team to make sure everything delivered met our high creative standards, aligned with the overall strategy, and was completed on schedule. This phase of the campaign was by far the busiest, but some amazing work came out of it.
Game Over
Before starting on this project I was vaguely familiar with Arcane and the world of League Of Legends, but by the end it became one of my favorite projects I’ve ever worked on. The artistry and the passion from the people at Riot Games and Fortiche is overflowing, so I feel incredibly honored to have played a part in bringing Season 2 to the world. Seeing the excitement from the fans made all of the long hours worth it, and I’m incredibly proud of the team at We Are Social for all of the work that went into this project.
Account Leads: Lauren Mynderse and Mariam Salcido
Strategy Lead: Clare Lulich
Strategy Support: Britt Ashley
Group Creative Director: Connie Shu
Associate Creative Director: James Liggins
Motion Design: Hana Jacobsen and Chris Cookson
Editors: Keith Guerrero, Ryan Huegerich, David Sadvari
Static Design: Lisa La
Copywriters: Becca Slack and Britt Ashley
Community Management: Rocio Cruz and Geo Cortez