Big Fish Games
Historic headquarters transformation and workplace design
Overview
The Maritime Building in Seattle's Pioneer Square has stood since 1910 — a century of logging trades, commission merchants, and Pacific Northwest commerce embedded in its bones. When Big Fish Games chose it as their headquarters, the challenge was designing a conversation between a building with 100 years of history and a company defining the future of gaming. Rather than treating history and brand as competing forces, the design made them collaborators. A fully designed museum exhibition — researched and curated with collaborative input from the client — chronicles the building's history from 1910 through 2018, using era-specific artifacts, archival photography, and typographic panels organized by decade. A custom materials-driven wayfinding system gave every door sign a reason to exist: Douglas fir wood blocks with raised lettering paired with magnetic black metal panels — Pacific Northwest heritage as precision craft object. Gaming culture was woven throughout via murals and playful typography without competing with the building's character.
Role
Concept development · Museum exhibit design + curation · Custom wayfinding system · Experiential graphic design · Fabrication coordination + installation oversight
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