01
Core menus
Main menu, settings, level selection and the exit confirmation pop-up.
Mobile space adventure, full UI kit
Cosmic Runner UI Kit
A glossy, bubbly UI kit for a mobile space adventure: main menu, settings, level select, exit dialog, in-game stat bars and an IAP store, all sharing one component language.
Overview
In this case study
This is a UI design kit I created for a mobile space adventure game. The goal was an interface that is clean, engaging and polished, built on glossy, bubbly panels, glowing highlights and a deep-space colour scheme.
The project covers all essential parts of a game's interface: main menu, settings, level selection and exit confirmation; an in-game HUD with top-screen player stat bars for health and currency; and an in-app purchase store. From the largest panels to the smallest icons, every component shares a consistent visual language.
Screens
02
Sketch to final
Every design starts with a solid foundation: a black-and-white sketch focused purely on layout, spacing and composition before colour and detail.
03
Style guide
The 'Kitchen Police' typeface has a great blocky, digital feel for the theme. The palette was chosen for high contrast: deep space blues, energetic reds, and a rich gold reserved for rewards.
04
HUD & store
In-game stat bars for health and currency, plus a clean IAP store screen.
Final thoughts
I really enjoyed designing this full UI set, especially creating the glowing cosmic look. Balancing so many elements while keeping the screen clean was a great design challenge.
Related reading
The thinking behind this
Longer write-ups on the craft this project drew on.
Typography for game UI: the part players read under pressure
Interface type is read in half a second, at speed, over moving artwork, by somebody who did not come to your game to read. Almost every rule that applies to a book works against you here, and the fixes are specific.
Read the article
Icon design for games: sets that still work at 32 pixels
An icon has about a fifth of a second and a few hundred pixels to say what a thing is. Most game icon sets fail not because the drawings are bad, but because they were drawn large, one at a time, by different rules.
Read the article