FirstBlood
An esports platform for Dota 2, PUBG and other competitive titles with automated scoring, matchmaking, ladders and real cash rewards. The product that shaped how I think about design systems, team leadership and designing for users who really care about winning.
From designer, to team lead, to Head of Design
I joined FirstBlood as a UX/UI Designer reporting to the Design Team Lead. When they left in June 2019, I stepped up and took over as lead. Two years later, after Mana (FirstBlood's fintech subsidiary) launched, I was promoted to Head of Design overseeing both products and a small but growing design team.
That career arc shaped this entire case study. The same platform evolved through three distinct chapters of my work, and the design system I started building on my very first day is what made each new chapter possible without starting over from scratch.
Redesign a live competitive platform without breaking trust
FirstBlood already had an engaged community of players actively running tournaments through the product. The redesign needed to improve usability and broaden the platform's appeal to new gamers without breaking the muscle memory of people who were mid-ladder and mid-season. That is a subtle UX constraint you can only respect by knowing your users intimately.
A tournament is one of the highest-intensity moments a product can create. Players are anxious, time-boxed and emotionally committed. The interface had to completely disappear during an active match and be unmissable between rounds. Getting that rhythm right required watching real players use the platform during live events, not just testing prototypes in a calm office environment.
One design system, every surface
Full product and brand redesign. I streamlined tournament flows, revamped the marketing site for user acquisition and sponsor visibility, and refreshed the brand identity across product, social and event assets. Everything was built so that one person editing a single component in Figma would see that change propagate consistently to every surface. That level of systematization was not a nice-to-have. It was the only way a small team could move fast enough.
Mobile-responsive from the start. Players live on their phones during event days. I led the responsive web design effort so that match check-ins, brackets and scoring all worked just as well at 360px as they did at 1440px. "One product, every device" was not an aspiration we put on a slide deck. It was the actual shipping requirement, and we held ourselves to it on every single feature.
Tournament states, one screen at a time
I mapped every step of the competitive journey from registration through check-in, round one, results and the next bracket. Each state got its own distinct screen so players always know exactly where they are, what is happening and what they need to do next. Ambiguity during a tournament is the fastest way to lose a player's trust.
The same compact flow handles "waiting for teammates to accept" and "your team is confirmed and ready" with just one tap separating anxiety from confidence. Small details like that matter enormously when someone has real money on the line.
Real rewards, not just points
Prize ladders, referral flows, cash prizes, skins, tokens. FirstBlood's competitive economy is layered, and the product had to make all of it legible to someone who just signed up five minutes ago. I designed the rewards surface so a new player understands exactly what they are playing for before they commit time and energy to a bracket.
The referral system started as a simple hook but it ended up becoming one of the platform's strongest organic growth channels. Sometimes the features that seem simplest in Figma turn out to carry the most weight in the business.
Scaling design beyond me
Becoming Head of Design meant my day-to-day shifted away from being primarily about pixels. I hired and mentored a mid-senior UX/UI designer and a marketing designer, established a shared design process with regular critique sessions, and set up feedback loops so quality stayed consistent across both product and brand work.
The design system was the engine underneath all of it. It let the team ship fast without drifting from the visual language, and it gave new team members a clear foundation to build on. Looking back, that system is probably the single artifact from this entire period that I am most proud of because it kept working long after any individual screen became outdated.
A platform its players came back to
FirstBlood launched a complete product and brand redesign that grew its community of competitive players and set the stage for Mana to launch as a sister product under the same parent company. The design system, marketing website and brand assets that came out of this period still define the visual identity of FirstBlood today.
More importantly for my own growth, this was the project where I learned how to scale design beyond myself. How to build systems that empower other designers. How to balance individual craft with team leadership. Those lessons have shaped every role I have taken on since.