It's Smoshing time
Smosh is an American sketch comedy YouTube channel owned and managed by Defy Media and created by Anthony Padilla and Ian Hecox. After being created in 2005, Smosh became the most subscribed channel for the first time in early 2006 as although their couple early comedy and music videos were a contributing factor, their popular Pokemon Theme Music Video mostly propelled them to the position. Smosh and its various spin-off brands now boast 40 million subscribers on YouTube and have generated 11 billion YouTube views over more than a decade.
I came into Defy Media (Former Alloy Media) around 2010 where I joined as a Sr Product Designer and later promoted to Creative Director for Defy Media and not soon after also Creative Director for Defys flagship property Smosh. I led in the new Smosh site refresh and branding refresh ranging from desktop, mobile to their first set of apps. I also led and managed a teams of 6-8 designers in various verticals at Defy Media.
ROLES
CREATIVE DIRECTION
EXPERIENCE DESIGN
PRODUCT DESIGN
░
░
Time for a modern look.
I led a small group of designers in Smoshes whole site re-work, we wanted Smosh (Ian and Anthony) to have a larger presence away from Youtube but also not alienate Youtube and thus we went out to create a new home and ecosystem for Smosh fans to consume more of the Smosh content they crave in the from of streaming video/music, articles, games, count-down lists and build a community around comments and forums.
░
░
Smosh in all sizes.
Responsive was a large request from stakeholders, Myself and team worked closely with our dev team to make sure we had a fluid response site that not only preformed well but looked great too on all screen sizes.
░
░
Streaming for your ears.
A side bonus task in the Smosh refresh was getting a streaming service set up to give fans the Smosh music they want when they want it. Smosh was mainly exclusive in the Apple Music Store, however we wanted to break away and have Smosh host its own music and even offer exclusives only listenable on the Smosh site.
░
░
We even made a baby Smosh for mobile.
Responsive was a big ask, and thus we not only made sure the site changed its form to suit where a user is viewing the site we wanted the mobile site to have a look and feel of an app, and not just a run of the mill mobile site. We got to work and with many wireframes, user testing and close team-ups with dev to deliver a fluid mobile experience.
░
