Case studies: UI artist: Jenny Peers

After graduating with a BA (Hons) in computer games design from the University of Wales in Newport in 2011, Jenny continued developing her skills while she was job hunting. Now, she's employed by Lionhead Studios, creators of the Fable and Black & White franchises, as a UI (user interface) artist.

After graduation, I made continuous updates to my portfolio and checked available job roles on the internet on a daily basis. I also worked as a website designer in my spare time, which really helped develop my UI skills.

Obviously, my degree in computer games design was very relevant to my current job. It has proved really useful as it gave me skills and experiences I would have struggled to achieve on my own. It also offered a look at what the games industry involves and the many different areas within it.

Every day is different in my job. It varies day-to-day based on my task list, but generally it involves creating concepts for UI screens or elements. Once a design gets decided on by the UI designer and producer I can start implementing it in to the game. I work closely with the UI programmers to ensure optimal performance and functionality.

I am fairly new in the industry so my role has not really developed yet, but in the long term, I would like to continue working in UI design towards a senior position. I am also really interested in concept art, which I practise in my spare time, and it could be another career route for me in the future.

I enjoy the balance of designing and using code to get things working. I find it a nice challenge and very rewarding once you have achieved what you set out to do. I love that I'm a member of a hard-working team and am making computer games people will hopefully enjoy. It is a challenge to create designs that work well both functionally and visually. It is important to keep file size of image textures as low as possible and develop methods of practice that will help lower the memory needed by the computer/console.

My advice for other students and graduates who would like to get into this career is to keep your portfolio up to date. Make sure you are showing your best work while demonstrating a range of techniques and styles. You need to be able to work fast, maintain a high quality and be very flexible with your designs. Sometimes things will need to get changed later down the line due to user testing or requests, so it is important to know how to adapt and solve these problems quickly and effectively.