NinjaCat

Javier called me out of the blue. He heard I was yet again, unemployed. That coincided nicely with a project that had just come across his desk for Microsoft. One he thought I’d be perfect for. He had me at NinjaCat.

I used to work at a place called Experiences for Mankind. I quit in order to travel with a man I barely knew in a Dodge van. After almost immediately regretting that decision, a few years passed. I moved from California to Missouri. Another questionable decision. But sometimes people just believe in you, especially when it comes to your ability to think of different ways to illustrate cats. And that’s how I ended up making some special-edition app themes for Microsoft’s ExpertZone, a learning platform for sales associates.

What in the world does that have to do with a cat?

NinjaCat Theme Concept 1: Make a Splash
NinjaCat gives you floaties to reach the top of your sales game, so you can barrel down the waterslide of working on commission!

NinjaCat Theme Concept 2: Magical Quest for Success
The retail associate hero’s journey is full of magic, wonder and secret texts only they can understand. What is a Microsoft Surface Pro 2 i5 4GB 128GB W10 if not a glowing crystal, illuminating a world of darkness?

NinjaCat Theme Concept 3: Guide to the Future
Sure, the future is about technology and fast-moving information zipping through our addled brains at the speed of light, but it’s also about listening to some jazzy beats in your mid-century modern luxury apartment and having fondue parties. At least, that’s what the Microsoft retail experience could be, if we let it.

Microsoft’s NinjaCat is a bit of an inside joke. It has a whole history that is so very 2010s internet. Remember the time before everything was super horrible online, and things were only kind of horrible? I do. And it was very cat-centric.

As I dove into NinjaCat’s lore, I wondered how poor NinjaCat would fare in these uncertain modern times. Let’s just say one should not lean too far into the “ninja” part of NinjaCat, despite the fact that 80% of graphic designers in the 2010s called themselves “pixel ninjas.” New NinjaCat was not going to represent any cultural stereotypes. NinjaCat had ascended. NinjaCat is not a being of place, time, color, gender or even breed of cat. NinjaCat is everything. NinjaCat is all of us. Most of all, NinjaCat knows the secrets of selling Microsoft laptops in a retail setting!

With all that in mind, I created 3 scenarios for our shape-shifting friend, placing our hero in multiple fun environments that could expand into the best re-skin your on-the-job training app has literally ever seen. Each world I created for NinjaCat had its own lore and thematic elements to augment every step (and misstep) along the journey. And no, I did not present the copy in the captions above to the client. That’s just for me and you.

Guide to the Future

These NinjaCat themes were only available to unlock after completing a series of training videos and quizzes, and were meant to be temporary. The idea was that there would continuously be new NinjaCat themes to unlock as a reward – something to look forward to. The first theme we rolled out was the Guide to the Future.

This was was by far my favorite of the 3, and it was fun to create this whole space-world where a cat was just lounging around on Mars, living their best vintage-furnitured life. Hundreds of elements were created to skin the various screens, footers, icons and popups for the ExpertZone experience.

I worked from an XD file with sizes and screens for all the ExpertZone pages and popups and created custom illustrated elements for each and every single thing that was available to be re-skinned. Backgrounds, error pages, footers, icons, everything was NinjaCatted.

Magical Quest

The second NinjaCat theme I rolled out was the heroic fantasy-world cat, spelunking through crystal crevasses beneath the surface to shine a lantern on how to Always Be Closing on Microsoft products.

This concept had some changes from the original, as they wanted it to be a bit more colorful. The color palette shown below was deemed too feminine for NinjaCat. I argued that NinjaCat was themself genderless (as directed by the client) and that actually these pastels were very fitting for their fluid identity. Alas not everyone is as culturally awake as I am.

Anyway, these colors were better and ALSO I think I deleted the other file on accident, so here you go.

NinjaCat’s cave became an ice cave, with chilly crystals that are as cold as the icy stare a Microsoft employee will give you if you come into their store with an iPhone.

(Don’t) Make a Splash

The third concept, Make a Splash didn’t make the final cut. But 2 outta 3 ain’t bad, right? This is the only thing I’ve ever made where the client feedback was “We hate this.” I think this is very funny, considering it’s a kitten with sunglasses.

Maybe if Microsoft had enough vision to choose this concept, they’d be a huge company by now. Smdh.

And Javier, thank you for calling me. I loved this project.

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NinjaCat 〰️

You want me to do what now?

Guide to the Future

Magical Quest

(Don’t) Make a Splash

Credits

Client

Agency

Concepts and Design