Weekly Roundup — May 31st, 2021
Dear Lympo community,
Let’s look back on last week in a new Weekly Roundup, shall we?
Last week’s recap
Lympo partners with Bros. Agency
Lympo and France-based Bros. Agency announce a strategic partnership towards athlete recruitment. Bros. Agency is one of the largest French athlete sports marketing agencies with a portfolio that includes legends such as Boris Diaw, Blaise Matuidi, Presnel Kimpembe, as well as rising stars like Antoine Dupont, Charles Ollivon, Moussa Diaby, Colin Dagba and others.
“ We love the innovative edge of Lympo, their strategic vision. We’re thrilled they chose us and our athletes to explore new territories, and the champions are enjoying as much as we do the jump in this new world”
Read all about it in our announcement article.
Lympo enters the esports industry
Lympo has entered into a strategic partnership with the most decorated Russian esports club Virtus.pro to launch NFTs based on the licensed images of the players of Virtus.pro’s Dota 2 and Counter Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) club rosters. Virtus.pro’s rosters are six-time Champions of Major international tournaments and they’re among the top 5 clubs in the world in terms of prize money won.
“The tradition of collecting player cards goes back a hundred years and has led to a fully grown ecosystem. With the help of blockchain technologies, this ecosystem has now been incorporated into the digital world. It’s great to have this kind of tradition in esports as well and we are happy to be a part of it courtesy of our partners from Lympo.” — Sergey Glamazda, CEO Virtus.pro
Curious as to who’s NFTs will be available to mint on the Lympo NFT platform soon? Check our announcement article here. You can also find Animoca Brands’ official press release here.
All Legendary NFTs were minted
Wow, all currently available Lympo Athletes’ Legendary NFTs were minted last week! And with that, all of Rose Namajunas’, Sergej Maslobojev’s and Tony G’s Epic NFTs were also minted last week. It’s getting heated on our platform, as our community is clearly eyeing for those Epic’s and Legendary’s. Don’t forget, every NFT — from Common all the way to Legendary — could play an important role in the media and entertainment ecosystem down the road. 😉
We can’t wait to announce more athletes to join the Lympo Athlete NFT minting pool soon, so stay tuned!
Lympo and GAMEE Q&A session
Lympo’s CEO @adajonuse and Head of Community @ArvidTu joined GAMEE’s CEO @anestetica and Head of Marketing & Gamification @JaimePichardoG to talk about how NFTs are changing the future of gaming and in-game ownership.
GAMEE is a social gaming entertainment platform that provides its current community of 25M gamers with an extensive library of 80+ proprietary games via its website and its mobile apps. Both Lympo and GAMEE are building thriving ecosystems that are fueled by true in-game ownership, powered by Animoca Brands.
Interested in how NFTs and games will come together, as well as how Lympo and GAMEE will make that happen? Watch the video on Lympo’s Youtube channel here. And if you listen closely, you might notice some interesting insights about what might come!
Q&A #3 with Lympo CEO
Get ready for another Q&A session with Lympo CEO @adajonuse. Thanks to our community for submitting a bunch of questions over the Twitter form we posted last week.
We will release a prerecorded video in which Ada answers your most important questions.
Behind the scenes
The second person we’d like to put the spotlight on is the man who’s behind all the creative stuff: Lympo’s Head Designer & Creative Lead Vytautas Ugianskis.
Who is Vytautas?
Basically, I’m a crow who is attracted to anything that’s pretty and shiny. I grew up in a small town in Lithuania, and I remember that I started playing around with graphic design when I was in 8th grade. With that, I also started participating in GFX forums and experimenting with building and designing some websites. So from a young age, I was fascinated by all things graphic design, web design, and digital art of all kinds.
I’ve also always been into sports, which I did somewhat professionally for about 15 years. I was a member of the Lithuanian athletics team, where I did shot put and discus throw.
Fast forward to today, I’ve been working as a UX product designer for the last 10 years. And alongside that, I’ve been a photographer as well, so I’ve spent some time behind the camera in video production.
My current role at Lympo is Creative Lead & Head Designer, so I’m basically responsible for everything that our community is looking at and clicking on. Every day, I have the privilege to work with some amazing artists and create awesome stuff alongside them.
When and why did you join the Lympo team?
I started working at Lympo right from the start in 2017, as I was part of the initial team that started Lympo.
Looking back, I couldn’t say that there was any big reason for me to join Lympo other than excitement and curiosity. It all started out as a really interesting and exciting project in a field about which I knew nothing at the time. That really drove me to learn new things and apply my skill set to an industry I was keen to explore. And as you can imagine, I haven’t regretted that decision at all. In fact, it’s been a fascinating few years and it’s been great to witness the tremendous growth we have gone through as a team.
What’s a typical day at work as the Head Designer for Lympo?
Well, it can get quite hectic as I work closely with almost everyone on our team. I keep track of what’s happening with the overall project strategy, the contracts with new athletes, our marketing efforts, and I’m obviously also working with other artists on the NFTs. Every part of our daily work needs some kind of visual representation, so it’s safe to say that it can get overwhelming. We try our best to plan ahead as much as possible, but in reality, those plans can change quite often.
However, it’s the NFTs that take up the largest chunk of my time. Every morning, I start with reviewing the artwork, after which I work on animations and concepts for upcoming NFT sets.
It’s also important for us to meet the demand for NFTs. So to keep the artwork fresh and original, I’m constantly looking for and talking with new artists.
What does your design & creative process look like?
No matter what task I take up — whether it’s designing or not — I follow the same thought process. It always starts with some background research, while I take lots of notes. Once I feel like I’m confident knowing enough, I gather at least several mood boards with different ideas to make concept decisions. After that, I move on to sketching, prototyping and designing.
At first, I always try to go through a few iterations and polish stages with the least amount of effort so I have a preliminary version that I can show other people or take a good look at myself to gather feedback.
The goal of my process is to divide the process into small stages. I always make sure I have something to show — visually — for each part of the process, so I’m able to discuss each part and react to changes as quickly as possible.
Where do you get your inspiration for the designs you make at Lympo?
It’s pretty hard to pinpoint a specific source for inspiration. I feel like I take it into my brain from everywhere: movies, games, graphic design, motion design, VFX, documentaries. Also, I think you need to get yourself inspired. When I look at any kind of piece of content, I really try to analyze and understand it. For example, why is that car designed in such a way, what was the reasoning behind each design decision and so on. Quite often, those kinds of mental exercises lead to deeper research and richer outcomes.
Which designs are you most proud of so far?
If I’m being completely honest here, I’m never really proud of my work. Don’t get me wrong, I can definitely be satisfied with it, but it’s rare that I feel true pride. However, we’re pursuing this incredible mission at Lympo which could have a profound impact on the sports industry, so maybe one day I will be proud of what I’ve helped accomplish with my design and creative work. I’m working on it!
What are you most excited about when it comes to Lympo’s potential?
To be honest, it’s really the potential that excites me. Blockchain and NFTs are still in their earliest stages, so there are very few standards and everything is moving and evolving extremely fast. This requires us to be lightning-fast in terms of creativity and how we react to the changes in the industry. Witnessing all of that coming together is very exciting to me. And besides that, every day I get to spend my time working with very professional and very dedicated people, which is just amazing in itself.
If you could choose any athlete for whom you could design an NFT, who would it be?
I still have soft spot for the sport that I did for 15 years. So I’d have to go with shot-put world record holder Randy Barnes. I’ve spent countless hours watching his videos, analyzing his techniques and trying to learn from him. So who knows, maybe one day he’ll join the family of Lympo athletes and I’ll be able to do design his NFT.
Looking ahead
As promised, our team has been working very hard to move the entire Lympo NFT platform from ERC-20 to Binance Smart Chain, and we’re making great progress. Stay tuned! 😉
Lastly, get ready for the 3rd Q&A session video with Lympo CEO @adajonuse, which we’ll release shortly.
Want to know more?
Visit the Lympo NFT minting platform.
Join our Telegram or Discord channels.
And while you’re at it, don’t forget to subscribe to our newsletter to be the first to receive the latest Lympo news.
