Monday Nights co-founder Matthew Caldwell shares how their latest project redefined their creative process and why design is key to breaking football gaming out of its rut.
CLUB, the debut title from Formation Games, has stormed into the top three of the App Store’s Free Sports Games chart, attracting more than 100,000 players just weeks after launch. Behind the hit football management game is a long-running design partnership with London- and Bristol-based studio Monday Nights, which has been embedded in the project since the day the studio itself was founded.
For 2.5 years, Monday Nights has helped shape the game’s look and feel, from user interface to icons, badges and trophies. The studio sought to bring a brand-first perspective to a category that often leaves you wanting when it comes to the creative.
The collaboration has already proved pivotal not only for the game’s early success, but also for the studio’s own evolution. Matthew Caldwell, Monday Nights’ co-founder and creative director, says: “We’ve been working with Formation Games for the entire 2.5 years we’ve been in business.
“Before Dan and I set up Monday Nights, a close friend of mine passed our details onto a guy called Tom (CLUB’s Co-Founder & Marketing Director), who at the time was looking to start his own mobile football game.”
Tom’s pitch came rather unconventionally in the form of a WhatsApp message, but it was a no-brainer for Monday Nights from day one.
Committing to a single client so early could have been a risk for such a new studio, but Monday Nights used it to their advantage, as it gave them stability to experiment. It started as just a couple of days a week with Formation Games, tackling everything from UI sketches to bespoke icons, trophies, currencies, and marketplaces.
The studio team even moved into Formation’s Farringdon workspace. “A lovely respite from sipping flat-whites at a snail’s pace in cafes,” Matthew recalls.
It wasn’t long before CLUB was taking up half of Monday Nights’ time. “A couple of years in and much bigger design leaps forward were happening, and the UI was beginning to manifest how it looks today,” he says.
The success of the collaboration is credited in part to the balance of expertise, as Formation’s team brought heavyweight gaming experience while Matthew and Dan were able to apply a brand-first mindset to the user interface. “The CLUB team were incredibly receptive to Monday Nights’ approach,” says Matthew. “Although most of them had backgrounds at some of the world’s most successful gaming studios, they enjoyed the brand-centric perspective that Dan and I brought to the UI conversation.”
When working in any established genre, deciding where to break the rules and where not to can make or break a project.
“The biggest creative challenge by far was understanding what gaming design conventions were worth innovating and which ones weren’t,” Matthew says. For example, the team rethought the use of traditional gold, silver, and bronze in player boiler plates, which often clashed visually with other parts of the game.
Meanwhile, some elements, like player lineups, were left largely untouched. “Things like lineups are so ingrained in the way we consume football, redesigning them would rely on players acquiring new knowledge, something we wanted to limit in order to make the game a success,” Matthew explains.
Even when a collaboration is perfect on paper, there’ll always be some logistical teething problems. Monday Nights had to quickly adapt to working in Figma, which Matthew describes as “literally a game-changer” despite having barely touched it before launching the studio.
CLUB arrives at a time when many feel football gaming has grown stale, but this project proves that design might be just what’s needed to give it a new edge.
“CLUB speaks to a new generation of fans and gamers who don’t want their social, football and gaming lives to be compartmentalised,” Matthew says. The live feed is a huge part of that vision, defined as part match-day commentary and part group chat, layered with gamified interactions between users. “Think your favourite football group chat, but with points!” Matthew adds.
The elements of personalisation give the brand work another green tick, with the CLUB-badge-builder allowing players to design team crests from dozens of bespoke shapes. Trophies and badges were also crafted to look elegant on player profiles and be easily shareable across social platforms.
Even the ergonomics of play were considered, according to Matthew. “The whole game is very much thumb-friendly — most interactions take place in the bottom 50% of the screen, putting the casual in casual gaming,” he explains.
Monday Nights admits that the project has changed how they think about design itself and gave them permission to get out of the box a bit.
Matthew says: “Before working with CLUB, all our previous professional experience was geared towards branding. But in reality, we’re not solely ‘brand designers’ – we’re ‘designers’ who love to turn our minds to all types of creativity.
“It’s been as fun to design 3D currency that scales down to 15px as it has to work on some of our biggest branding projects.”
In place of the typical “handover and goodbye” was an ongoing relationship with the client, which has given everyone at the studio a renewed sense of fulfilment. “It’s been cool having a relationship with a client that doesn’t end with one traditional delivery of some guidelines or a campaign,” says Matthew. “We’ve been able to evolve alongside CLUB on their journey.”
With over 100,000 players and a top-three App Store ranking, the team’s belief in the project has only been strengthened. “To be honest, we’ve always had faith in the crack team behind CLUB, and it’s great to see the game starting to get the traction they have been working so hard for,” Matthew says.
For Monday Nights, it’s also a validation of their small studio, long-term partnership, and big ambition model. It’s living proof that start-up designers can grow in tandem with start-up businesses, leading to really rich collaborations.
