WHEN DUTY CALLS

Mike on how the most satisfying moment of his career enable him to combine his two loves: design and stories

“Perhaps my most interesting project was designing the Retribution level design for Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare. I don’t think I’ve had any clear moments of breakthrough in my career. There are moments where a design begins to come together and everything clicks, but I think in general that creative development is much more of a slow-burn situation without the spectacle of ‘Eureka!’ moments. That’s been my experience, at least.

The challenge on Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare was a multi- dimensional problem: designing a complex hub level that needed to satisfy game mechanics and narrative across a huge single-player campaign. This gave me the chance to stretch all my capabilities as a designer at the same time.

I did have several points in that process where I was in a flow state, considering all the various design considerations at the same time. That was very satisfying, to see 10 years of experience begin to come together as part of one dense design challenge.”

Mike increasingly uses nuanced metaphor in his concepts. This nuance is seen in his design work on Blade Runner 2049 and, he teases, the muchanticipated remake of Dune (scheduled for release in 2020). But he’s only been able to do this since the designing, the making of the thing, became second-nature. Look at Mike’s work from 30,000 feet – work in various fields, work inspired by various disciplines – and this is what you see: all the fancy stuff is built on very solid, but relatively simple foundations.

“I believe there’s a hidden thread to it… I put a lot of cognitive energy into making a tightly knit, logical design. I can see artists who work in similar domains, that don’t necessary pay attention to this hidden architecture of logic. Many artists focus on one area, say aesthetics, and don’t look at the underlying structure of a design. I believe that the most “successful” artists and designers are the ones who approach a design or artwork holistically, bringing a range of disciplines together. The different disciplines make up supportive legs – like a tripod that can hold a lot of weight because it distributes that weight evenly.”

concept art vs concept design

So, our final question, corrected, no longer careless, is now this: what separates concept art from concept design? Methodically, forensically, logically, Mike explains it thus: “Say the audience doesn’t understand an artist’s work. The artist might say, ‘ Well, they just don’t get it.’ Say the audience doesn’t understand a designer’s work. The designer will go away and ‘seriously interrogate’ what went wrong, then fix it.” Put simply, Mike says, concept art makes the artist feel good and concept design makes the audience feel good.

“The biggest difference is that great concepts communicate something fundamental to a large audience, and great communication is ultimately about structure, logic, coherence, metaphor and empathy. These are the hidden ingredients that I believe make up great art.”

I put a lot of cognitive energy into making a tightly knit, logical design

Bridge mood piece “A quick overpaint to sell a level design layout for the bridge design.”

the Raven – interorbital dropship “I created this design with Raven Software, for Call of Duty: Infinite War.”

UNSC Jackal “A complex interorbital, vertical take-off and landing fighter jet. The engineering behind this design was pretty complex.”

Retribution “Overview of the UNSC Retribution, a space carrier for the protagonist fleet in Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare.”

Desert Boneyard “For Horizon Zero Dawn I was asked to design a vehicle and then to put it into the context of degrading over centuries in a desert boneyard.”

The Shadow Marshal’s Ship “A Hub level design for the Killzone Shadow Fall video game series. It’s a transforming interorbital spaceship.”