Full creative direction for a fantasy wrestling promotion — an original identity system spanning 12 promotion brands, event art for sixteen PPVs, two annual awards magazines, multi-page commissioner reports, and player onboarding.
The rebrand raised the game's profile and drove a marked rise in new player sign-ups
Brand Identity2021-2022Contract
Creative DirectorJohn S. Eldridge, Jr.
FWA — Fantasy Wrestling Alliance — is the flagship product of JCMG Fantasy Sports: a fantasy wrestling promotion where players manage rosters, cut promos, and compete across multiple in-game organisations. I served as Creative Director from November 2021 to the end of December 2022, brought in to rebuild the brand at every level.
The brand had grown piecemeal — stock images, found logos, and graphics made as they were needed, with no system holding any of it together. My brief was to replace the lot with original work: a real identity for FWA itself, and for the in-game promotions players compete under.
The constraints arrived all at once: no budget, a volunteer player base, stock-only source material, and a monthly event cadence that never paused for a redesign. Seventeen in-game promotions each had to read as its own brand while still belonging to one universe. The remit kept widening — alongside the design system I worked as game designer, game admin, community developer, special events coordinator, and Discord developer and admin, and community management. I built the company's Discord from nothing.
It worked. The rebrand raised the game's profile and brought new players in, and it gave the promotion a look that could carry a monthly event calendar, a complete social media and Patreon programme, and seventeen in-game brands.
The FWA rebrand was the foundation. The main logo needed to work across digital platforms, print materials, and in-game branding. A mascot character was developed alongside the wordmark to give the brand a face.
FWA primary logo — the Fantasy Wrestling Alliance wordmark
FWA mascot — custom character illustration
The game featured 17 different in-game wrestling promotions, each with its own identity. I redesigned 12 promotion logos from the ground up — building a cohesive system where each brand felt distinct but clearly belonged to the same universe.
DCW — Defiance Championship Wrestling
GEW — Georgia Elite Wrestling
LPW — Legends of Pro Wrestling
LRW — Lucha Revolution Wrestling
MASW — Midwest All-Star Wrestling
MCW — Memphis Continental Wrestling
MSW — Mid-South Wrestling
NEHW — Northeast Hardcore Wrestling
NEW — NXT Elite Wrestling
NJPW — New Japan Pro Wrestling
SCW — Sin City Wrestling
WCCW — World Class Championship Wrestling
The rebrand extended across every platform the promotion used. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Patreon each got custom cover images built from the brand system using assets in various configurations. The Patreon page received its own branded header and a set of tier badges — Prelim, Mid-Card, Mid-Card Plus, and Main Event — each tied to a subscription level. A promotional video ad was produced in Adobe Premiere Pro, combining licensed stock footage with custom motion design graphics — logo composites, animated transitions, and branded overlays built from the FWA identity system.
FWA promotional video ad — Premiere Pro, custom motion graphics over licensed stock footage Watch on YouTube →
Facebook cover image — social media branding
Twitter cover image — social media branding
YouTube cover image — social media branding
Patreon page header — branded cover image
Prelim
Mid-Card
Mid-Card Plus
Main Event
Each month brought a new PPV event, and each event needed art — the most visible creative output there was, announcing the show, setting its tone, and giving the community something to rally around. Sixteen events ran across 2021 and 2022: nineteen header pieces once the multi-day tournaments are counted separately, with four events worked up as full portrait posters. Every one was themed from scratch out of stock photography and vector artwork, on a cadence that never moved.
Event Headers
Mistletoe Madness — 2021
King of the Ring — 2022
King of the Ring — 2022 (Day 1)
King of the Ring — 2022 (Day 2)
King of the Ring — 2022 (Day 3)
King of the Ring — 2022 (Day 4)
Turmoil in Tokyo — 2022
Deviant Behavior — 2022
Fantasybash — 2022
Glory Days — 2022
Chain Reaction — 2022
Brass Ring — 2022
Ground Zero — 2022
Summer Heat — 2022
Asskickin' in Atlanta — 2022
Pain in Paradise — 2022
Devil's Night — 2022
Battle at the Border — 2022
Mistletoe Madness — 2022
Event Posters
Turmoil in Tokyo — 2022 PPV poster
Deviant Behavior — 2022 PPV poster
Hell 2 Pay — 2022 PPV poster
Summer Heat — 2022 PPV poster
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The Year End Awards was an annual magazine-style special, designed in the style of classic wrestling publications like Pro Wrestling Illustrated. I built the full layout in InDesign — cover design, rankings pages, award spreads, and custom retro design elements including year markers and border artwork. Two editions were produced (2021 and 2022), each with custom header designs and editorial layouts. The 2022 edition was the last piece I delivered for FWA, finishing out my time there that December.
Year End Awards — magazine spread layout
Year End Awards — secondary spread layout
Year End Awards 2022 — custom header design
Each in-game promotion had a commissioner report — a multi-page InDesign document styled like a classic wrestling magazine, with rankings, character profiles, and editorial content. I designed layouts for DCW, NXT, MCRW, and WCCW, including custom character redraws, logo design, and ranking graphics.
DCW — Full Report
DCW Commissioner Report — Page 1
DCW Commissioner Report — Page 2
DCW Commissioner Report — Page 3
DCW Commissioner Report — Page 4
Other Promotions
MCRW Commissioner Report — Front Page
WCCW Commissioner Report — Front Page
NXT Elite Wrestling — The Performance Report, front page of the December 2022 issue: masthead over a darkened ring shot, the Supernova Championship card, and a recruitment panel offering a reader the open contender's spot
The same questions came back in Discord from every new player — how to create a manager, where the point values live, what triggers a disqualification. Answering them one at a time did not scale.
So I wrote the manual that answers them in order. Four pages, every step hand-lettered beside a cropped screenshot of the real interface, with arrows drawn to the exact control being described — because the failure was rarely that players could not follow the rules, it was that they could not find the button the rules referred to.
It covers a complete first session: creating a manager, a wrestler, and a tag or six-man team; downloading the hold-value spreadsheet and reading it for trends; entering moves without tripping the duplicate-hold disqualification; signing matches; and writing out-of-ring action.
Page 1 — Steps 1 to 3, creating a manager, a wrestler, and a tag or six-man team, each instruction hand-lettered beside a cropped screenshot of the actual dashboard
Page 2 — Step 4, finding the point-values page and downloading the hold-value spreadsheet, with drawn arrows tying every instruction to the control it refers to
Page 3 — Step 4 continued, reading the hold-value data for trends and entering the chosen moves, including the warning that repeating a hold risks disqualification
Page 4 — Steps 5 and 6, signing matches and writing out-of-ring action
After it shipped the repeat questions fell away, and new players could get through a first session on their own.
