DIABLO IV
Blizzard Entertainment /
Electric Square (co-development)
2022 to 2024
Role: Principal UI Designer
OVERVIEW
I spent two years on Diablo IV as part of Electric Square's co-development partnership with Blizzard Entertainment. Co-development means working to a first-party studio's standards, inside their pipelines, on one of the most anticipated action RPGs in a generation; the work sits alongside the internal team's, and it has to hold up.
My contribution ran across two very different disciplines. The first was world map spline authoring; precise, technical vector work underpinning how players navigate Sanctuary. The second was a large body of icon work spanning five seasons of live content. One demanded accuracy and stamina, the other craft and invention; together they grew the engagement from one designer to five. This page covers both.
"I'd gladly work with Jack again and would recommend him to any team looking for a dependable UI Artist who delivers quality work."
Jennifer Kennedy
Lead UI Artist, Diablo IV, Blizzard Entertainment
MAP SPLINES
Six months of exacting vector work, delivered ahead of the original estimate. My first task was the kind that rewards consistent focus and tenacity rather than creative flair: authoring the vector path splines for Diablo IV's world map in Adobe Illustrator, tracing and constructing precise routes over bitmap terrain across all five regions. Fractured Peaks, Scosglen, Dry Steppes, Kehjistan and Hawezar; each took several weeks to complete.
The workflow ran in a loop: download the bitmap map, construct the vector splines over the terrain by hand, load them into the engine, test for errors, iterate, then move to the next region. Unglamorous work, but the way it was delivered mattered as much as the work itself; quick, consistent, clearly communicated, and without fuss. That's what turned a spline-authoring task into a much bigger engagement.
ICON DESIGN
SEASON 1 TO 5
On the strength of the map work, Blizzard expanded the co-development team's icon remit. Over five seasons I delivered a significant body of character customisation icons covering the playable classes: Barbarian, Druid, Necromancer, Sorcerer and beyond. The majority of Season 1's icons were original designs; where existing elements were reused, they were redrawn and adapted to match Blizzard's established style. Reference was gathered however necessary, including posing with a broomstick in the garden, a lampshade over my head, and holding a knife by the blade.
From Season 3 the work expanded into battle pass emblems, decorative guild insignia and sigils, built from scratch in Photoshop. Every icon had to earn its place under hard constraints: read instantly at small sizes, hold up against Diablo's dark, densely textured UI, and sit convincingly inside a visual language owned and refined by another studio. In later seasons I used MagicPoser for anatomical reference, then deliberately stepped back from accuracy; the icons needed to feel drawn by hand, by people without formal anatomy training. Matching the game's crude visual narrative meant knowing the rules well enough to break them on purpose.
SCALING THE TEAM
The early work changed the shape of the engagement. Quality, communication, speed, consistency, and a willingness to get on with a relatively mundane task all built trust with Blizzard; on the back of it, they expanded the co-development team, bringing in four additional UI designers from Electric Square at Experienced, Senior and Lead level.
Together with our Art Lead, Mathieu Puffet, I brought the new designers up to speed: briefing the work, establishing ways of working, and setting up the pipeline they'd operate within. Production ran through a shared board, with icon work distributed across the team while staying consistent enough that no seam showed between hands. That's the real test: not whether one person can hit an established style, but whether five people under deadline can. They did, across every season we shipped.
DOCUMENTATION
To support the expanding team I built a comprehensive documentation suite: cheatsheet-style reference guides produced in Adobe InDesign and published as PDFs, articles written directly in Confluence, and video walkthroughs with voiceover and subtitles edited in Adobe Premiere. Clear, thorough, and built to be used by designers joining the project for the first time.
The documentation was treated like any other design product: tested on its users. I watched an artist who was new to the project work from the documentation, noted where they hesitated or asked questions the docs should have answered, and revised those sections until the friction disappeared. Built so the next designer never had to ask.
OUTCOME
What started as a single spline-authoring task grew into a five-person icon team on the strength of the work. Two years, five regions, five seasons of shipped live content; an engagement that kept expanding because the work kept earning it.
"I had the pleasure of working with Jack during his time as a contractor supporting the Diablo team. He created a wide range of high-quality UI assets and icons that integrated seamlessly into the game's visual style. Beyond his strong artistic skills, Jack was always pleasant to collaborate with. He approached feedback with a positive attitude, was receptive to critique, and consistently iterated to reach the best possible results. His patience and professionalism made him an easy partner to work with, even when navigating tight timelines. I'd gladly work with Jack again and would recommend him to any team looking for a dependable UI Artist who delivers quality work."
Jennifer Kennedy, Lead UI Artist, Diablo IV, Blizzard Entertainment
© 2023 Blizzard Entertainment, Inc.
Diablo, Diablo IV, and Blizzard Entertainment are trademarks or registered trademarks of Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. in the U.S. and/or other countries. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners; screens shown for portfolio purposes.
Selected Works
TIDY GIZMO
Jack Hooker · UI Designer