Important Note: This team works onsite at EA Vancouver (Burnaby office). Applicants are required to work onsite 3 days, Tuesday - Thursday every week. This is a 6-month contract with the possibility of longer term employment.
EA SPORTS is one of the world's leading sports entertainment brands, known for top-selling video game franchises, award-winning interactive technology, and cross-platform digital experiences. EA SPORTS creates connected gaming experiences that bring the emotion of sports to life through industry-leading titles, including Madden NFL, EA SPORTS FC, NHL, NBA LIVE, and UFC.
We are looking for a talented Concept Artist with strong illustration and design skills to create artwork inspired by football players, football culture, and iconic moments. You will help develop murals, portraits, graphic artwork, and environmental visuals that bring our football world to life. This role is ideal for an artist skilled in portraiture, illustration, and painting, sophisticated graphic design, and an understanding of how large-scale murals function in real-world architectural environments.
The artwork will appear throughout a realistic football-inspired game world and should feel authentic to the locations, communities, and visual cultures it represents. Murals may celebrate historic matches, memorable player moments, football culture, local identity, or seasonal themes. They may range from highly figurative portrait pieces to graphic, typographic, stencil, collage, and street-art-inspired compositions.
Your Responsibilities
Working closely with the World Art Director, Concept Art Lead, Narrative Designers, and World Art team, you will:
- Concept & Illustration Creation: Design high-quality concept art, environmental graphics, murals, and portraits, featuring real-world football players, teams, and culture.
- Reference & Authenticity Research: Utilize photographic references and gather deep cultural insights to ensure characters, environments, and locations are regionally authentic.
- Stylistic Versatility: Explore and apply a wide range of visual styles, including illustration, street art, stencil, collage, lettering, and painted mural aesthetics.
- Iterative Design & Polishing: Generate rapid thumbnails and design explorations to pitch ideas, then develop selected concepts into highly polished artwork with strong composition, lighting, and storytelling.
- Spatial & Graphic Integration: Design artwork tailored to architectural spaces—considering scale and surrounding structure—while incorporating graphic elements like typography, patterns, and signage.
- Art Direction & Feedback: Present work clearly, iterate quickly based on feedback, and adapt designs to meet established Art Direction.
- Production & Team Collaboration: Work within technical file specifications and production schedules, collaborating across disciplines to successfully bring concepts into the game.
Strong Foundation in Concept Art & Illustration
- Strong drawing, painting, composition, color, and visual storytelling skills.
- Ability to create realistic figures, characters, and environments from reference.
- Understanding of anatomy, perspective, lighting, and proportion.
- Ability to create both realistic and stylized artwork.
- Strong visual problem-solving and an ability to explore multiple creative directions.
- Ability to understand creative briefs and transform ideas into clear and engaging visual concepts.
Portrait & Figurative Art
- Ability to create recognizable portraits and figures from photographic reference.
- Understanding of facial structure, anatomy, expression, and likeness.
- Interest in developing portraiture skills and translating real people into different visual styles.
Graphic & Mural Design
- Good understanding of composition, visual hierarchy, color, typography, shape, and graphic design.
- Interest in mural art, street art, environmental graphics, illustration, or other large-format artwork.
- Ability to combine figurative artwork with graphic elements to create cohesive designs.
- Understanding of how artwork can be adapted to architectural or environmental spaces.
Artistic Range & Collaboration
- Curious about different artistic styles, cultures, and visual references.
- Comfortable adapting to different creative directions and art styles.
- Able to take feedback and iterate quickly.
- Strong communication and collaboration skills.
- Interest in sport, music, fashion, street culture, or contemporary visual art is a plus.
Portfolio Requirements
- Your portfolio should demonstrate strong foundational art and design skills. We are particularly interested in seeing:
- Portraits or figurative artwork based on real people.
- Strong drawing, anatomy, and character work.
- Illustration demonstrating composition and visual storytelling.
- Graphic design, mural, street art, or environmental artwork.
- Examples showing a range of artistic styles.
- Where possible, examples showing sketches, explorations, references, and the development of an idea into a final artwork.
Software & Production Skills
- Proficiency with Photoshop, Illustrator, or comparable professional 2D art tools.
- Ability to create and prepare high-resolution digital artwork.
- Comfortable working within established file specifications and production workflows.
- Willingness to learn new tools and workflows as required.
Nice to Have
- Experience creating murals, street art, environmental graphics, or large-format artwork.
- Strong portraiture or likeness skills.
- Experience with graphic design, typography, or lettering.
- Experience creating artwork for games or interactive environments.
- Experience with sports, entertainment, fashion, or cultural IP.
- Knowledge of football players, clubs, leagues, and global football culture.