Designing the platform behind modern trading card publishing.

Designing the platform behind modern trading card publishing.

Creating a trading card game is a highly collaborative process spanning game design, art, editing, production, and external contractors. Most publishers still manage that work across spreadsheets, email, and disconnected software. Carde Create rebuilt that process as a single production platform, organized around the one object every department shared: the card.

Creating a trading card game is a highly collaborative process spanning game design, art, editing, production, and external contractors. Most publishers still manage that work across spreadsheets, email, and disconnected software. Carde Create rebuilt that process as a single production platform, organized around the one object every department shared: the card.

My Role

Lead Product Designer, sole designer on Carde Create

Lead Product Designer, sole designer on Carde Create

Team

Carde executive leadership + eng; Publisher game designers, art directors, and production stakeholders

Carde executive leadership + eng; Publisher game designers, art directors, and production stakeholders

Timeline

8 months; Oct 2024 - June 2025

8 months; Oct 2024 - June 2025

Focus

UX strategy, information architecture, interaction and interface design, permissions architecture

UX strategy, information architecture, interaction and interface design, permissions architecture

overview.

overview.

Carde served the trading card game ecosystem through three products: Carde Play for players, Carde Cloud for game stores, and Carde Create for publishers. As the company's first full-time and sole Product Designer, I worked with Carde's executive leadership and engineering team to shape the platform while collaborating directly with publisher game designers, art directors, and production stakeholders throughout development.

Carde served the trading card game ecosystem through three products: Carde Play for players, Carde Cloud for game stores, and Carde Create for publishers. As the company's first full-time and sole Product Designer, I worked with Carde's executive leadership and engineering team to shape the platform while collaborating directly with publisher game designers, art directors, and production stakeholders throughout development.

This case study focuses on Carde Create, the production platform for enterprise publishers.

This case study focuses on Carde Create, the production platform for enterprise publishers.

Creating a trading card game requires hundreds of cards to move through game designers, artists, editors, production managers, and contractors, each contributing at different stages. Most publishers managed that process through spreadsheets, email, and disconnected tools. Carde Create unified those workflows around the one object every department shared: the card.

Creating a trading card game requires hundreds of cards to move through game designers, artists, editors, production managers, and contractors, each contributing at different stages. Most publishers managed that process through spreadsheets, email, and disconnected tools. Carde Create unified those workflows around the one object every department shared: the card.

The project began with proof-of-concept designs. As the product matured, I redesigned the majority of the experience, rebuilding it on a shared ShadCN component foundation while redefining the product's interaction architecture.

The project began with proof-of-concept designs. As the product matured, I redesigned the majority of the experience, rebuilding it on a shared ShadCN component foundation while redefining the product's interaction architecture.

problem framing.

problem framing.

Every department owned part of a card's production lifecycle, but no system owned the whole picture. Specifications, artwork, approvals, tasks, and communication lived in different places, making even basic questions difficult to answer.

Every department owned part of a card's production lifecycle, but no system owned the whole picture. Specifications, artwork, approvals, tasks, and communication lived in different places, making even basic questions difficult to answer.

No centralized answers

Where is this card?

Who owns the next step?

What feedback is still outstanding?

Is it ready to move forward?

Where is this card?

Who owns the next step?

What feedback is still outstanding?

Is it ready to move forward?

The production workflow itself wasn't mine to redesign. Publisher requirements had already defined it, and a Product Manager had documented the production pipelines before I joined. Trading card publishing was a new domain for me, so I relied heavily on that foundation while translating a complex, established process into software that made the work understandable, collaborative, and scalable.

The production workflow itself wasn't mine to redesign. Publisher requirements had already defined it, and a Product Manager had documented the production pipelines before I joined. Trading card publishing was a new domain for me, so I relied heavily on that foundation while translating a complex, established process into software that made the work understandable, collaborative, and scalable.

understanding the work.

understanding the work.

Because the production workflow was already defined, my research focused on understanding how people moved through it and where existing tools broke down.

I partnered closely with the Product Manager, who had documented publisher requirements and production pipelines before I joined, then explored and pressure-tested those workflows through working sessions with publisher game designers, art directors, and production stakeholders. Together, they revealed how cards moved through production, where information fragmented, and which responsibilities required different levels of access.

Three insights shaped the platform.

Because the production workflow was already defined, my research focused on understanding how people moved through it and where existing tools broke down.

I partnered closely with the Product Manager, who had documented publisher requirements and production pipelines before I joined, then explored and pressure-tested those workflows through working sessions with publisher game designers, art directors, and production stakeholders. Together, they revealed how cards moved through production, where information fragmented, and which responsibilities required different levels of access.

Three insights shaped the platform.

01

01

No one owned the whole card.

No one owned the whole card.

Every discipline managed its own portion of production, but no single view connected specifications, artwork, approvals, tasks, and status. That fragmentation made the card the natural source of truth.

Every discipline managed its own portion of production, but no single view connected specifications, artwork, approvals, tasks, and status. That fragmentation made the card the natural source of truth.

02

02

Access needed to follow the work.

Access needed to follow the work.

The same card meant different things to different contributors, many of whom were external contractors. Traditional role hierarchies couldn't express those relationships cleanly, leading to permissions based on production responsibility instead.

The same card meant different things to different contributors, many of whom were external contractors. Traditional role hierarchies couldn't express those relationships cleanly, leading to permissions based on production responsibility instead.

03

03

Consistency broke down at scale.

Consistency broke down at scale.

Managing hundreds of cards with freeform inputs created drift across mechanics, terminology, and production assets. Templates and Language Libraries became foundational systems rather than convenience features.

Managing hundreds of cards with freeform inputs created drift across mechanics, terminology, and production assets. Templates and Language Libraries became foundational systems rather than convenience features.

decisions.

decisions.

01

Make the card the source of truth.

Make the card the source of truth.

Rather than separating specifications, artwork, tasks, approvals, and production tracking across multiple tools, I centered the platform on the card itself. Every production artifact lived in one place, giving every contributor a shared view throughout its lifecycle.

Rather than separating specifications, artwork, tasks, approvals, and production tracking across multiple tools, I centered the platform on the card itself. Every production artifact lived in one place, giving every contributor a shared view throughout its lifecycle.

The model proved resilient as publisher needs expanded. Configurable pipelines, production tracking, and automatically generated task lists attached directly to the card, allowing the platform to scale without fragmenting into separate tools.

The model proved resilient as publisher needs expanded. Configurable pipelines, production tracking, and automatically generated task lists attached directly to the card, allowing the platform to scale without fragmenting into separate tools.

02

Model permissions around production responsibility.

Model permissions around production responsibility.

The same card moved through game designers, art directors, editors, QA, production managers, and contractors, each requiring different visibility and capabilities. Rather than relying on organizational hierarchy, I designed permissions around production responsibility. Group membership determined which workspaces, tasks, and tools appeared, hiding everything unrelated to a contributor's work.

The Artist Portal became the strongest validation of that model. External artists collaborated directly inside the platform while remaining isolated from unrelated projects, internal discussions, and administrative controls.

The same card moved through game designers, art directors, editors, QA, production managers, and contractors, each requiring different visibility and capabilities. Rather than relying on organizational hierarchy, I designed permissions around production responsibility. Group membership determined which workspaces, tasks, and tools appeared, hiding everything unrelated to a contributor's work.

The Artist Portal became the strongest validation of that model. External artists collaborated directly inside the platform while remaining isolated from unrelated projects, internal discussions, and administrative controls.

03

Standardize production through shared systems.

Standardize production through shared systems.

As production scaled, consistency became as important as collaboration. Freeform inputs created drift across card mechanics, terminology, and production assets, making large card sets increasingly difficult to manage.

Templates and Language Libraries established reusable production standards for mechanics, frames, terminology, and shared assets, improving consistency while reducing repetitive work across an entire release.

As production scaled, consistency became as important as collaboration. Freeform inputs created drift across card mechanics, terminology, and production assets, making large card sets increasingly difficult to manage.

Templates and Language Libraries established reusable production standards for mechanics, frames, terminology, and shared assets, improving consistency while reducing repetitive work across an entire release.

cross-functional collaboration.

cross-functional collaboration.

Enterprise demos became design sessions.

Publisher demos regularly evolved into working feedback sessions, repeatedly expanding the product's scope and surfacing new requirements. Design became an active part of product discovery rather than a downstream deliverable.

The PM owned the domain. I owned the interface.

I partnered closely with a Product Manager who had mapped the production pipelines and documented publisher requirements before I joined. He held the domain knowledge while I translated those workflows into software through information architecture, interaction design, and interface design.

A shared system kept design ahead of the complexity.

Working with the VP of Engineering, we rebuilt Create on a shared ShadCN component foundation. That allowed design effort to stay focused on production workflows instead of rebuilding interface primitives as scope expanded.

outcomes.

outcomes.

The architecture absorbed expanding scope.

Carde Create absorbed three client-driven expansions without requiring its underlying interaction model to be rebuilt, allowing new workflows and capabilities to integrate into the existing system rather than fragment into separate tools.

Enterprise collaboration shaped the product.

Publisher feedback sessions repeatedly expanded the product's scope and contributed to securing two enterprise development contracts.

Project status.

Carde Create reached prototype stage before Carde ceased operations. The Artist Portal was fully designed and supported by backend architecture, though front-end implementation was never completed.

attribution.

attribution.

What I owned

The complete user experience for Carde Create, including information architecture, interaction design, interface design, the card-as-source-of-truth model, permissions architecture, Artist Portal, and the shared ShadCN-based component system.

What I didn’t own

The production workflow itself. Publisher requirements and production pipelines were defined before I joined and documented by the Product Manager. Engineering owned the backend architecture and implementation.

key learnings.

key learnings.

Good architecture survives changing requirements.

Carde Create absorbed three rounds of expanding scope without requiring its underlying interaction model to be rebuilt. The company didn't survive long enough to ship the product, but the architecture consistently accommodated new requirements.

Constraints produce better systems.

I inherited a production workflow I didn't define in a domain that was new to me. Designing around real operational constraints produced clearer decisions than starting from a blank slate.

Organizing the system mattered more than adding features.

Every expansion introduced pressure to build another tool. More often than not, the better solution was to extend the card itself. Choosing the right organizing object had a greater impact on the product than any individual screen I designed.