A brand built for a community, not a campaign
The design challenge with an esports brand is specificity. Gaming communities have sharp aesthetic instincts and even sharper detectors for inauthenticity. A brand that looks like a corporate attempt at being cool fails immediately. The identity had to feel native to the space — credible to hardcore players, legible to a broader audience encountering esports through Finnish TV for the first time. The Telia Esports Series identity was designed to work across an unusually wide range of contexts: live event stages, national television broadcasts, digital advertising, merchandise, and the web platform itself. Consistency across those formats — and the discipline to keep the identity strong in each — was a core part of the brief. For the first time, Finnish esports players were brought into mainstream visibility: TV programmes, national advertising campaigns, and live events with real production values. The brand had to carry that ambition without losing the credibility that made the audience care in the first place.
The identity was deployed nation-wide across media — from in-game broadcast overlays to national TV campaigns. A brand that works at that range, for that audience, is a harder design problem than it looks.
A platform that serves the community year-round
The website was the league's permanent home — the place where the community came between events, not just during them. That shaped the design priorities. Live match streaming, real-time and historical tournament statistics, and esports news coverage all had to be integrated into a single experience that felt designed for the audience, not assembled for a sponsor. UX for a live esports platform has specific demands. Viewers follow multiple tournaments, track favourite teams across seasons, and expect the kind of data depth that sports fans take for granted in other contexts. The design had to make that information accessible without burying it in complexity — clear navigation, fast load times, and a visual language that matched the energy of the competition. The league structure itself gave Telia something sponsors rarely achieve: ongoing relevance to the community. By creating a pathway for promising players to develop professionally and gain national visibility, Telia Esports Series became part of Finnish esports infrastructure, not just a seasonal activation.
The two deliverables from the original brief capture the scope: a nationally deployed esports brand identity, and a digital platform that made the league's competition, statistics, and news accessible in one place throughout the year.
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(2016-25©)
