A new operator with a cashback pool mechanic nobody had seen before. I designed the brand and the UX layer that made it feel tangible — soft launch on track for Q2 2026.
The Brief
Kickback was launching a new casino built around a cashback pool mechanic — players earn back a share of the platform's revenue based on activity and tier, instead of the usual flat % cashback. The founders needed one experienced figure who could own the whole creative side independently, advise on direction and ship without supervision.
Casino vertical with live games and slots, targeting all markets. Pre-launch window: March — April 2025 for brand and product, soft launch scheduled for end of June (Q2 2026), long-term collaboration after that.
What I Did
Solo external designer, embedded with the founding team. I owned brand and UX end-to-end, with a specific focus on making the cashback mechanic feel like a real reward instead of a number:
- Brand identity from scratch — naming validation, logo system, typography, colour palette, tone of voice. Built to read as premium and player-first, not corporate.
- Custom lootbox visual system — the signature solve. Translated the abstract "share of the pool" mechanic into a tangible, openable lootbox metaphor players already understand from gaming culture.
- UX for the cashback flow — designed how players see the pool fill, track their share, and claim their rewards. The mechanic becomes a loop, not a footnote.
- Product UI — lobby, game tiles, account area, deposit / withdrawal, all states for desktop and mobile.
- Marketing & campaign visuals — landing pages, banner suite, onboarding promos, social templates aligned to the lootbox visual language.

01Hero · brand intro & positioning

02Brand · logo, typography & colour

03Custom lootbox · cashback pool made tangible

04Product · cashback flow & pool tracker

05Product · lobby, live games & slots

06Campaign · landing pages & banner suite
Scroll to explore · 6 screens →
Spotlight · 3D Hero · Live
A real-time 3D hero, built to live in the browser.
The Kickback hero is a custom 3D scene running in WebGL — the brand "K" device, idle-floating, drag-interactive, with a breathing LED pulse every 5 seconds. Click and drag the model below to rotate it.
Live interactive prototype — drag to rotate the K device.
Integration · Art × Engineering
Shipped as a Three.js scene — engineered to feel premium, not gimmicky.
The brief was to give the K presence — make it feel like a real product object you can pick up, not a banner image. That meant treating it like an industrial design piece: surface materials, lighting, subtle motion, weight in the idle, response in the drag. Then making all of that ship inside 1 second on mobile.
▸ Artistic direction
- Lighting rig as character — lavender key + cyan fill + rim, modulated per frame so the K appears to breathe with the brand palette. Light is the brand voice; the geometry just supports it.
- LED pulse as heartbeat — emissive intensity ramps every 5 seconds. Not a decoration — a rhythm that tells the page it's alive. Players notice it without naming it.
- Idle weight — compound sin-wave float (±8°), slow, asymmetric. Reads like a physical object suspended in zero-g, not a Lottie loop.
- Drag-and-return — user spins it, releases, and 1.5s later it slides back to hero pose. Gives the player ownership without losing the brand framing.
▸ Engineering & performance
- glTF 2.0 + Draco — 28MB / 967k tris source simplified to ~77k tris via
meshoptimizer and Draco-compressed to 670KB on the wire. Loads under 1s on 4G.
- Three.js r160 via ESM importmap, single canvas per variant, pixel ratio capped at 2 for retina without melting low-end GPUs.
- Render gating — inactive variants halt their loop on picker switch; render pauses entirely when the tab is hidden. Battery-aware on mobile.
▸ The result
The K stops being a logo and becomes the brand object. It anchors the page, sets the tonal register (premium, dark, electric), and gives players a single thing to focus on before the casino noise begins. Recruiters and operators who've seen it compare it to product launch pages — not casino lobbies. That's the win.
Results & Impact
6 weeks
Brand from zero to founder approval
Q2 2026
Soft launch on track · end of June
.com
Casino · live games + slots · no geo lock
12+ months
Retainer post-launch · long-term partner
What I Delivered
- Full brand identity — logo system, typography, colour palette, voice & tone, brand book
- Custom lootbox visual system — the signature mechanic translated into an openable, gamified visual
- UX flows — cashback pool, tier progression, claim flow, deposit / withdrawal, onboarding
- Product UI — lobby, game tiles, account area, all states across desktop & mobile
- Marketing surfaces — landing pages, banner suite, campaign templates, social
WANT TO KNOW MORE?
Interested in this project or want to discuss how I can bring the same thinking to your product?
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