Project details

Think of Indie MEGABOOTH showcases as the Sundance Film Festival, but for video games

With IMB, my role was designing marketing content that promoted the gaming organization and would organically attract future exhibitors - on a punk-rock DIY budget.

I'd covered IMB's clients as a reporter, and they wanted to put my storytelling to work for their small - but mighty! - organization that matches indie developers with publishers like Microsoft, Oculus and Sony.

That included rewriting the company bio, creating and maintaining an editorial calendar, and concepting and executing evergreen content for the company blog. I drafted news articles and social campaigns, as well as copy edited press releases.

I owned production of the monthly newsletter with some 4,000 subscribers and provided media consultation and coaching for CEO Kelly Wallick, too.

In February 2019 I traveled to Boston with the team to document the company's sprawling presence at the Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) B2C trade show.

Creative process

Gosh, I'm amazed at what IMB was able to do with such a limited budget

The day-to-day team was a grand total of five people. So that meant in my role I wore multiple hats - copy editor, content designer, social media writer, photographer and media consultant - and had to maximize every opportunity available for content creation.

While I was on the ground at PAX taking photos I also scouted for blog fodder, interviewing creatives about their experience exhibiting under IMB's bright yellow banner.

I got my hands dirty and helped the team of volunteers tear down the massive 7,000 sq. ft booth and crate it up for the next show in record time, too.

Blog posts served as organic recruitment tools for future exhibitors and volunteers. I conducted email interviews with developers, republished (and edited) text from their personal blogs to use on the IMB site.

Additionally, I concepted and executed original short-form pieces that, for one example, highlighted IMB alumni games that'd been released on platforms like Xbox GamePass.

For social content I looked for merch and news to promote related to alumni games, highlighted alumni soundtracks and fun stuff around the web, in addition to copy for news announcements.

I also dug into IMB's blog archives to promote previously published SME blog posts about game design process.

Gaming is fun, and it was imperative that the company voice and image reflect that. The team already had a tone and style in place, my job was adopting that and making sure the photography reflected this directive as well.

Meaning, lots of bright colors and people smiling as they played exhibitor games. I took a BTS tack with photos of exhbitors at the sprawling booth, B2B mixer event and Kelly's (above and below right) numerous panel appearances.

These were used across social and the company blog to promote future events.