FORZA FOOTBALL

UX/UI designer

2014 - Current

For over 5 years I have now enjoyed a wide range of responsibilities at Forza. Everything from starting a football academy in Cambodia, to visual design, UI and UX design work. I love the care everyone in the team has for the product and the perpetual strive to always improve in all areas. We have the best users in the world, whom are a big part of our iterations as they help us with invaluable feedback via reviews and interviews. Finally, our mission to “make the world of football a better place” is very inspiring and has given me some lifelong memories as it allowed us to start up a football academy in Siem Reap, Cambodia. This area has since prospered and we have gone on to break world records, develop pro players and have a massive impact on the local society. I can’t imagine a more inspiring project to work with.

Forza Football (iOS + Android)

Forza provides live scores, lineups, push notifications, video highlights and player profiles for more than 800 football leagues and cups around the world. With 2-3 million very loyal, active and passionate users we always get quick feedback on our solutions and strive for the highest product quality.

THEMES

Long term project

One area I really enjoyed was to build themes for the app. Through the years I made over 100 themes for both iOS and Android. It was a very thorough process which began with the visual concept and continued all the way to the final product which involved working in both Xcode and Android Studio. It was very satisfying being able to do all the work from the start to the very end.

Since we are working with football there is a really strong affinity to colours as they strongly represent the identity of various clubs. This was why we kept the main user interface neutral, but allowed for users to show their colours by various coloured themes. We also cooperated with several major corporations (as Nike and Adidas) to create custom campaign themes for them.

”ABOUT ME”

Some kind words from my amazing colleagues

"I really enjoy working with Kalle, he is always driven and passionate about his work. Has a great eye for design and focus on the details."

Kalle’s influence in a team goes way beyond the top-quality, beautiful design work he delivers on the daily; he finds ways to give technical structure to huge problems of any kind, communicates solutions effectively and cooperates with developers and PMs in every step of the product’s lifecycle. He does all this wearing a smile on his face and with the friendliest and warmest of attitudes.

It's very inspiring to work with Kalle thanks to his seemingly bottomless passion for efforts that has an actual impact. Whether it's building football apps or creating opportunities for humanitarian efforts, he will deliver beautiful and valuable design.

New feature

A challenge we had in Forza was that in such a passionate sport as football it was difficult to highlight events and areas without coming across as biased. If we promoted certain matches in the neutral matchlist rival fans would become upset. We also struggled with a way to present the most exciting and vital matches to low interest fans. This is how we came up with a new area of the app called Discover. Initially the feature was aimed at casual football fans, as a way for them to stay up to date on all major events in football. Long term the intent is to localise and make it customisable (e.g. filtered content) & personalised (e.g. show Chelsea content to their fans) so it appeals to more hardcore fans.

DOCUMENTATION

Problem

Forza Football is currently not optimized for casual football fans and due to a very rigid user interface we lack a place where we can be more creative and biased as we highlight specific content.

Target group

Initially the feature is aimed at casual football fans, as a way for them to stay up to date on all major events in football. Long term the intent is to localise and make it customisable & personalised so it appeals to more hardcore fans.

Solution

To create a tool and a platform in the app where we can create and highlight specific content.

Design concept

Discover is composed by four levels (see image below) and together all the parts make up a story. A story is the top level of Discover and the idea is that each one covers a specific context as a Champions League-, World Cup- or Messi-story.

Levels of Discover

Level 1 → Cells

Level 2 → Cards

Level 3 → Segments

Level 4 → Stories

Components

Technically there are a lot of components that makes up Discover. Check the image below to get an overview of them.

SCREENS

MISCELLANEOUS

Additional projects

An challenge we had in Forza was that in such a passionate sport as football it was difficult to highlight events and areas without coming across as biased. If we promoted certain matches in the neutral matchlist rival fans would become upset. We also struggled with a way to present the most exciting and vital matches to low interest fans. This is how we came up with a new area of the app called Discover. Initially the feature was aimed at casual football fans, as a way for them to stay up to date on all major events in football. Long term the intent is to localise and make it customisable (e.g. filtered content) & personalised (e.g. show Chelsea content to their fans) so it appeals to more hardcore fans.

NIKE

Hypervenom promo campaign

We have done a lot of campaigns with Nike, Adidas, EA etc. One of my favourites was this campaign for Hypervenom, a couple of years ago. After the campaign I made a promo video which apparently got standing ovations at Nikes annual meet-up. Not bad!

The project involved concept creation, graphic- & motion design and video editing. Plus a few late nights to reach a classically tight Nike deadline.

FORZA

Business cards – retro football cards

This was another fun one. I created retro football business cards for our (very) international team and added various trivia and stats to the back of them. The cards were always a great first impression and we had lots of clients who asked if they could “join the team” by getting their own custom card.

CONTACT