Some months ago, a job opening for a Mobile UI Designer showed some significant requirements that set me into rumor mill. No official announcements have been made ever since to substantiate them. However, one of our visitors, Grom, pointed out some peculiarities in certain Blizzard Employee-forum-poster avatars. Low polygon count. Soft-textures if at all. Bright colors. Low shadows. A vague speculation. Yet itches the curiosity. Take your own conclusions.

Grom: “I see a very midly textured and rough animation that would never come out of a hand of a blizzard artists, unless the device for which it was created, or technology in which it created was limiting somehow. In case of mobile technology, it’s actually very pretty.”

Lead Mobile UI Designer

Blizzard Entertainment is looking for a talented, self-motivated individual with experience in UI design and implementation for handheld devices to help lead our efforts into the mobile space. The ideal candidate is a designer with a deep understanding of the unique opportunities and limitations of the platform who can help formulate the strategic design goals of our mobile efforts. The lead mobile UI designer must have the capacity both to create and to direct others to create clean designs that balance the Blizzard art style with the specific needs of the mobile audience.

Requirements

  • Proficiency with Adobe Photoshop or equivalent graphics application
  • Strong sense of the Blizzard artistic style and the ability to design themed UI artwork and clean layout designs
  • Strong sense of web and application process flow and optimal UI layout
  • Experience designing and implementing UI for mobile web sites and mobile applications
  • Strong knowledge of XHTML/CSS and mobile compatibility issues
  • Strong knowledge the mobile space standards and trends
  • Passion for gaming and the emerging mobile web

Pluses

  • Solid understanding of XML/XSLT, and WML
  • Experience with Adobe Flash and Flash Lite development
  • Experience managing a small team of designers/developers

Please send code samples in text files as well as a cover letter, resume and salary history in separate Word format documents to resumes@blizzard.com.