ArtDirection | Mysite

Art Direction

I'm currently the Studio Art Director at Storm8. Managing and directing my team has been an incredible privilege and a role I take quite seriously. I've been fortunate enough in my career that I've worked with several great Art Directors whose leadership, mentorship, and friendship have helped shape me into the Director I am today.

My Management Philosophy

People First.

Work life balance is more than important - it's everything. Crunch culture sucks. It lowers productivity, reduces job satisfaction, and produces lower quality work. I strongly believe that having reasonable work hours is beneficial to everyone. That's not to say that an occasional, one-off long day can't happen, but I strive to make sure that it is not part of my teams culture, and the company culture as a whole.

Personal Connections Matter.

I've found over the year that it's the personal connections (in addition to interesting work) that form strong working relationships. Everything comes easier - giving difficult feedback, forgiving mistakes, collaboration when we make the effort to form genuine relationships with our teammates.

Like many things, I learned the importance of forming relationships when I made the mistake of not fostering one. A few years ago, the GSN Studio started working with an art team in Kiev, Ukraine. While the artists were talented, I was having a difficult time getting them to produce work at the level that I knew they were capable of. I felt like there was this barrier that I couldn't get past. Until one day it occurred to me, I'm the person who swoops in once a week - tells them what they're doing wrong - and then flies away. This was not the relationship I wanted to have with this team. So, I started scheduling 1:1 time with them. We didn't talk about work - I asked them about themselves, their families, interests etc., and in turn they started asking about me. All of the sudden, a door opened... and over time, they started reaching out with questions about work. I noticed a more positive attitude in meetings and the quality of work improved.

Collaboration

We all work better when we work together. Working with others for feedback, problem solving, brainstorming etc makes for a stronger team and product. Collaborating is the key to continued learning and growth both personally and professionally. I don't believe that top-down management creates the best outcomes - great ideas can come from anywhere. Putting ones own ego aside and working together across the organization creates investment better outcomes than going it alone.

Hire Great People

Hire great people, trust and empower them and they will make great work. Bonus points if they have a skill set I don't have, gives me the opportunity to learn something new.

Storm8 - Property Brothers Home Design

Turorial room and First 12 Rooms Update

I've worked on several initiatives at Storm8, one of the more recent was the visual update of the tutorial room and the first 12 rooms in Home Design Makeover and Property Brothers Home Design.

Interior design trends change over time, and after several years, the early rooms in both of our design games felt very out of date. There was a lot of gray-on-gray design. A small team of artists and I updated the early rooms across both of these games - besides being more current and beautiful, this led to a significant increase in player retention.

The selection of rooms below are ones where I handled the redesign - updating the models and textures while mostly keeping the original layout of the room. Final lighting and polish were handled by 3D.

Tutorial Room
Updated the gray-on-gray design for more color, adjusted the layout to be more inviting and less like a "catalogue."

Original

Updated

Updated lighting and polish by George Haney at Storm8

Denver Kitchen
Toned down the use of gray and added warmth through wood tones. Updated lighting, decor and options to feel more sophisticated and current.

Original

Updated

Updated lighting and polish by George Haney at Storm8

San Francisco Living Room
Toned down the more dated industrial design elements and furniture for more timeless options, rebalanced the lights and darks of the room and added mor warm elements for better balance.

Original

Updated