What is it like to design a brand for mixed-reality games?

At Valo Motion, our games don’t stay on screens. They live in physical spaces where people move, jump, and play together through mixed-reality experiences. Helping shape how this world looks, feels, and is communicated to customers, partners and players is Valentina Lachner, our Brand & Marketing Designer. In this story, Valentina shares her career path, what her work looks like in practice, and what it’s like to design a brand for mixed-reality games that live far beyond the digital world.

Growing companies, interesting challenges

Since joining us in April 2024, Valentina Lachner has been responsible for developing and unifying our visual brand across marketing, products, and customer touchpoints.

“I’m responsible for the brand guidelines and for designing everything related to marketing, from the website and sales materials to videos and product communication,” Valentina explains. “My job is to help show what our products are, how they feel to play, and why they matter.”

Before Valo Motion, Valentina’s career has been shaped by working in growing companies and scale-ups, environments where things are still taking form, evolving, and changing. For her, that has always been a big part of the appeal.

“That kind of environment really motivates me. You get to look at the brand as a whole and help shape how it develops over time”, she explains. 

In the kind of growing companies and scale-ups, the brand often starts from a very basic level. Especially early on, it may be minimal or slightly DIY, created by non-designers or external partners as a quick solution. “When I join as an in-house designer, I often get to develop the brand from a very bare minimum into a clear, coherent system,” Valentina says.

From there, the work is about refining and unifying the brand so it supports the company’s growth across all touchpoints.

“Usually it takes about two years to redo everything: refreshing the brand, updating the website, materials, social media, everything,” Valentina explains. “At some point, things become more established, and you’re working within the system you’ve built.”

For Valentina, that moment isn’t a drawback, but simply part of how design work in growing companies works. “So far, I’ve consciously made the choice also to change companies from time to time, to gain new experience and grow my expertise, as I enjoy stepping into a new situation, figuring things out, and taking ownership of the bigger picture.”

When Valentina came across Valo Motion, she recognized that familiar growth phase, but also something entirely new. “Valo Motion is also a growing company, but the context is very different. The products, the games, the physical environments, there are so many layers,” she says. That combination has proven especially motivating.

“There’s this feeling that while some patterns are familiar, new challenges keep coming all the time. That keeps the work really interesting”, she says. 

A role with endless possibilities

Nearly two years in, Valentina says she has been happily surprised by how the versatile and ever-evolving brand and marketing side has been. “I have definitely not been bored, quite the opposite,” she says simply.

One of Valentina’s first big focus areas was Valo Motion’s overall brand structure and website design. “I really got to the base of it and streamlined everything. We simplified things, made the system consistent across all pages, and we actually saw a positive effect of that in performance numbers as well,” she says.

She also wanted the visuals to better reflect our value of being serious about fun. “When I joined, the brand was a bit too serious, so I brought more fun back into it with more dynamic shapes and a more colorful palette, while still keeping a professional and premium feel.”

She enjoys that kind of work more than one might expect.

“It’s not always the most creative work, but it’s very systematic. You go through small details and make sure everything fits the system. It can be really satisfying to get everything organized and right.”

As we continue to grow, with new product launches and game development, her work has shifted again.

“This year has been much more about brand development. The brand is still the base, but there are many opportunities to try new things. Especially when new products are different from the existing ones: how do we present that, and how do we make it obvious it’s something new?”

What does a typical day or week look like for you?

There’s no such thing as a typical day for Valentina. “It depends a lot on what we’re working on at the moment.”

Her work moves between long-term projects and fast-moving launches. A big part of the year is shaped by international trade shows in the attraction & gaming industry.

“For our main events, we start preparing months in advance. I work on everything from designing the physical booth and large visual elements to catalogues, landing pages, videos, and social media content leading up to the show.”

Possible product and game launches follow their own rhythm. “With a product launch, everything starts from naming the product, designing the logo, creating sales materials, and product pages. And then there are game launches: teasers, trailers, social media launches, and making sure the sales team has everything they need.”

She also makes sure that our partners always have up-to-date information about our products, and that our customers receive fresh trailers and materials to help them attract their own guests. “It’s important that the whole chain works smoothly, from us to the operators and all the way to the players.”

Between those, there’s a constant flow of updates and improvements. “There’s always a mix of things on my table. It’s never the same week twice, and that’s what makes it exciting.”

Designing for mixed reality and physical products

While Valentina’s role includes many “classic” in-house designer responsibilities, the environment around her work is anything but typical.

“At Valo Motion, I’m the only designer working on the marketing side, but I’m not the only designer in the company. We have game designers and artists in game development, and industrial designers working on the physical products.”

This creates a unique setup where design is shared across teams, and increasingly connected.

“Not long after I joined, we launched something called Design Exchange, where all the creative people from different teams come together and talk about design topics. It can be user interfaces, product usability, visuals – anything. It’s a space where ideas move between teams.”

That collaboration comes even tighter with new products. “For example, a game artist might create a logo, I take something from that into the brand side, and then it goes back again into product elements. It really helps to make things more consistent and on-brand.”

For Valentina, this big-picture perspective is one of the most interesting parts of her job.

“How do we get all these different things under one umbrella? Physical products, games, partners, customers, and then the players who actually experience the games.”

Valentina is translating how the games feel and why they’re fun into value for operators and partners. “And we need to talk about the same product in different ways to different people.”

Learning, growth, and new perspectives

Valentina says her time at Valo Motion has expanded her perspective in several ways. “I’ve learned a lot about the different layers of how you talk about products to customers. And also about working in a bigger marketing team than before, even though we are only four people.”

The clarity of roles has stood out in a marketing team. “I do visuals, Prakhar focuses on writing and social media, María on technical marketing, and then Ulla takes care of the strategic leadership. Even though we’re not a huge team, we can make a lot happen because the roles are clear.”

She’s also gained an inside look into game development and a global business she didn’t know much about before.

“I didn’t realize how global Valo Motion is, or how game development actually works. Seeing rough prototypes turn into finished games on real products has been amazing.”

Interestingly, working in the game industry wasn’t her original goal. “I had looked into gaming companies before, but many were mobile gaming, and the roles weren’t that interesting for what I do. Finding Valo Motion was a bit of a coincidence.”

A coincidence that turned out to be a great match, also personally. “I climb and I used to do trampoline gymnastics, so the idea of working in a company that creates games around movement immediately caught my interest.”

A healthy, trust-based environment to work in 

When asked about Valo Motion as a workplace, Valentina doesn’t hesitate. “I feel like I’ve never worked in such a healthy work environment. There’s no drama.”

Trust plays a big role.

“People respect each other’s skills and trust that others know what they’re doing. In the beginning, of course, I had to ask for more approvals. But over time, things move faster because there’s trust.”

That trust and collaboration have also made some of Valentina’s proudest moments possible. One example stands out in particular. “Our booth in 2025 at IAAPA Expo Europe in Barcelona. It was the first time I was involved in the process from the very beginning, which gave us much more opportunity to bring in visual and branding elements”, she says. 

The result felt meaningful not just professionally, but personally. “The feedback from the team was really great, and many said it was the best booth we’ve ever had. That felt really rewarding.”

Appreciation is something Valentina experiences in everyday work as well. “People openly say thank you and give credit when something goes well. It’s very uplifting and positive.”

So what would you say to someone considering joining Valo Motion, Valentina?

“Valo Motion is a great place to work if you want to dive into a fun and active world. At the same time, you get real opportunities to develop yourself and make an impact with your work”, she sums it up. 

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