In truly unforeseen fashion, I was made redundant in October, and honestly it has been really shit.
Only 2 weeks away from buying my first property, I had just come back from a short trip to Ireland to meet my girlfriends family for the first time. To say I was on an all time high, would be an understatement because at that time, everything I had ever wanted was in place. Unfortunately, my confidence and happiness came crashing down very quickly; I received an email to say I was being let go alongside 17+ other staff. With all the ups and downs, 2022 was both the best and worst year of my adult life.
*Some of the Recast team at the office decked out in green for St Patricks day 2022
Fast forward a couple months, each day comes with a reminder to value the little achievements and continue to find the motivation to get out of bed. I could have wallowed in my misery but instead I chose to use the new found freedom to develop an idea I had been passionate about for many years, but had never had the time to invest in; The Scottish Esports Network. The quick progress and rapid interest in the network has not only been exciting but also humbling. An organisation focused on connecting Scotland's esports industry together as a whole rather than the fragmentation and land grab it's suffered from in the past. The possibilities of personal success are endless...but in truth I don’t actually want to be running it. What started as a great branding exercise manifested into a Network that has since experienced high footfall. As already mentioned, the industry does need this desperately, and if I hadn’t take the initiative to take the leap then we would still be experiencing a fragmented community. To date it has been a great personal achievement, but it's not the end goal; Branding is.
Building brands is something I've always come back to at my lowest lows and highest highs. Uni societies, group project teams, my honours project, businesses as a videographer, esports Scotland and the numerous IP my team and I created. It's always come back to the same thing. Branding.
The plan
Choose a specific niche (Where Sports & Esports meet)
Showcase company capabilities by:
Creating spec projects
Polishing portfolio
Growing out a team with interns who have the potential
Teach them everything I know so they can replace me as creative director so then:
Have my upskilled interns pass on my knowledge to new interns
While I work on gaining and maintaining clients
Chip in here and there to add a sprinkle of finishing touches ensuring the work is always something I'm proud of.
Why Esports?
It's my minimum viable audience, for now. It might actually be too niche, given industry layoffs and stats about viewership going back to pre-covid projections. So hence the gaming and sports sides. Competition and games, that's all sports, gaming and esports are at the end of the day. But as Blair Enns says, you have to make the difficult choice
Our team
I'm looking for hungry people with good taste. Skills can be learnt but taste isn't as easy to come by.
Clients:
Sports Teams, Colleges/ Universities, Tournaments, Teams, Brands and businesses in the sector or looking to move into the space. Great branding can do magical things, turn your business from a pet project to a staple in the mind of your audience.
Anyone fighting the world from ugliness. Let's get fan excited by making stuff look cool!
Summary:
So that's the gist! Dream job- made redundant- felt worthless- building myself back up- starting an esports branding agency. Badaboom.
We don't have a name yet, or a logo. So it's early days! but I'm super excited. We've already launched the Scottish Esports Network, and previously created the Scottish Esports League and numerous other IP. And now my intern Finn and I doing a collegiate esports spec project over the next couple months which is already looking awesome.
When there's no jobs make your own!
Dale R Murray | Esports Creative Director
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