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The Community x Art Pipeline ✨ Community Dev Newsletter #29
Published about 2 months ago • 6 min read
Community Dev Newsletter
Hello fellow people going through historically significant events!
This month's newsletter dives into:
The art process between me and our art director at Innersloth
A new community discussion - how do you find inspiration for content creation?
27 interesting links and games community related job posts
Community x Art
I've been asked this a couple of times, which means it's time to write about it!
Indie studios are often tight on resources and manpower, and so jobs inevitably overlap over each other (e.g. community managers doing marketing and PR.) When a studio wants to have a content-heavy marketing strategy, how do you actually coordinate that with a busy artist? What if you want to jump on a timely, viral meme?
The memes keep flowing and the nonsense never stops.
Here's the exact art request pipeline our Art Director Hannako Lambert and I created for ourselves over the years at Innersloth.
Before we get into the nitty-gritty, here's a few notes:
Hannako and I have worked together for roughly 3 years now - creating a process that worked for us took a lot of time and trust! Having a good working relationship and wanting the other person to thrive is so important!
I am extremely lucky to be able to work with Hannako - they're fast, talented, and our humor lines up well. Sometimes I'll get memes from them without asking because they thought of something funny.
We had a lot of help! It really took off when we had our producers Kristi Anderson & Krys Loh join to make it all work.
The Basics
I use a mix of our task management software (ClickUp)* & direct messages when requesting content. The basic agreement is:
ClickUp (CU): Official and preferred place for requests. This can range from fun memes to evergreen content and actual marketing needs.
Direct messages (DMs): Time dependent viral trends.
A lot of this is expectation management, so as long as you are in agreement with your art person/team, then you should be good to go.
*Any task tracking management software will do, but it's also easily done in a spreadsheet! When I worked on content requests for Venba, I used Google Sheets.
Actual Marketing Needs
This is something that is either required or highly desired. For example, I may need a key asset for a big update or want art for a holiday celebration.
Expectations:
Must be given ample time to complete the task, though sometimes a third party partner will ask for a last minute asset. What counts as "ample time" is dependent on how complex the art needed is - talk with your artist to understand what that is for them. Personally, I try to create the task a month ahead of time.
Must have a priority and due date attached to them. Things like partner requests and major marketing beats are considered high for me, while a holiday post is low and we could technically live without it.
Must have dimensions, specs, and anything that must be in the image.
Execution:
The artist sketches out what the art will look like based off of my description and requests. Usually it's vague enough that the artist takes creative liberties according to what they think looks good.
Sketches are posted in the task for me to look over and comment on before final colouring and line art goes in.
If it's approved, then I change the status indicating it's ready for export, and the artist throws the final images and size variations in our shared Dropbox.
I'm not the only one who will suddenly think of something funny at 11PM on a random Tuesday, right? If I get struck with meme inspiration that doesn't need to be posted at any particular time, they go into the CU.
Expectations:
All ideas are optional.
Artists can pull from this section when they have extra time and need warm up.
I'll usually describe whar I want in detailed text, add references, or my ultimate card... attach a poorly drawn sketch I've done.
Behold my skills!
Execution:
Same as the process for actual marketing needs!
Memes (Time Dependent)
Some memes are only funny when they're extremely timely, lest you post too late and fall into a "silence brand" moment. In these cases, I send them directly to Hannako in our work DMs.
Expectations:
All ideas are optional. They have full rights to say "nah, too busy", and it's important for them to feel comfortable and not like they're letting you down. Ensure you and your artist have that good working relationship and no guilt is felt.
Artists can pull from this section when they have extra time or need it for a warm up.
The meme should not be an incredibly intense art request.
References and ideas are sent.
Execution:
Because this is done via DMs, it tends to just be a back and forth there and needs less edits than an official art piece. Usually the artist and I will riff off of each other if I'm not entirely sure how to nail the meme.
I try not to ALWAYS depend on art for content (but am lucky our studio makes time for it.) Often I'm recycling assets, using in-game content, and editing art so that we can reach that regular posting cadence.
For example, this meme was edited together by zooming into an old asset we had:
If you want to read more about my scrappy way of reusing content, you can see this post I wrote agessss ago back when I worked at another studio!
Refine!
But of course, things have changed and now we have more help. It started as just Hannako and I, but now there's a whole art and community team working together to make the best goofs consistently. Having a streamlined process for them makes it alllll work.
Hope that helped! I don't think it'll work for every studio, but I know it can be helpful to have a peek behind the curtain of how it all works.
Community Activity 📝
Every month we do a skill testing exercise or discussion question together.
The question:
How do you find inspiration for content creation? Are there places you go to specifically or a certain way you brainstorm?
Feel free to email me back with your answer - I always respond to them. My answer will be in the next newsletter!
Community Chatter 💬
Here are the interesting and helpful things I've seen this past month.
General News
New tools coming to YouTube Shorts: Auto layout on Android, text to speech, “Add yours” sticker, add auto-generated captions directly on your content
Twitter/X automatically added data training of your content for their AI tool Grok. If you'd like to turn that off, you can do so easily in your settings (desktop only).
Innersloth - Community Manager (Remote) -- Hehehe this is my job post!!! (Note: please don't email me to get your foot in, my notifications are blowing up. Just apply via the job link. 🤓)
Landfall Games - Contract Community Manager (Stockholm, Sweden preferred)
LEGO - Content Manager, GAME Community, Play & Creator Growth (Billund, Denmark)
Netflix Games - Sr. Community Manager (Los Angeles, USA)
PlayStation - Public Relations Specialist (San Mateo, USA)
Plug In Digital - Senior PR & Influencer Marketing Manager (Remote, Europe)
Razer - Global Esports Marketing Manager (Irvine, USA)
Reddit - Staff Community Manager, Strategic Response (Remote)
Riyo Games - Senior Community & Marketing Manager (Remote)
Schell Games - Content Marketing Manager (Pittsburgh, USA)
Sega of America - Associate Product Marketing Manager (Irvine, USA)
The New York Times - Community Engagement Manager, Games (New York City, USA)
Success through shenanigans with community management.
Hi, I'm Victoria! Join my Community Dev Newsletter for insight into games marketing, social, and community management. Get actionable tips, a skill testing question, and a roundup of resources straight to your inbox every month.
