Re-Branding Games Workshop

Last week we were briefed in order to pick an international company with a shop in Leeds so we could re-brand it not just from the information we would be able to gather on internet, but also from doing a primary research personally. I chose Games Workshop, the tabletop miniature wargame specialists. Despite I am quite geek it is not my passion to collect miniatures and customise them, but I know the company quite well as I have some friends that enjoy the hobby and because it has a complete unsophisticated and outdated logotype which does not represent the current ambitions of the company. I also thought that I could use some of my experience in the field to apply it to the empire company, as I participated once as Graphic Designer in a crowdfunding project called Dark Skies: In the land of the empires.

Original logotype

1.- Research

Games Workshop has been quite a controversial company in the last years when the mission of the company change radically, a decision that made them lose old fans that grew up with their games and decided to invest in new alternatives like Mantic, River Horse or Corvus Belli through crowdfunding platforms. For many people the 90's and the 00's were the best decades of Games Workshop, time before the direction team changed.

On their website they are very straight forward with their statements: 'We make the best fantasy miniatures in the world and sell them globally at a profit and we intend to do this forever'. This direct clarification of their intentions is to those who has publicly manifested their false expectations accusing the company for not accomplishing them and it is also a proof of a one-way communication between the company and the customers, stating they are not interested in suggestions or feedback of any kind. They also clearly state their values: they are passionate manufacturers and their priority is to invest always in improving the quality of the miniatures. People interested in collecting will choose the best and this specific kind of costumers is willing to pay a high price for this level of quality, they claim. It makes me think that whoever is interested in this hobby values quality rather than a game, and they do not seem like they want to compete with the videogames industry, which I think it would be an irrational decision.

After understanding their mission, values, mission and personality, and despite all the controversy, I thought it would be beneficial to find a way to widen the target audience and not just to bring back the old lost fans (nowadays they are mainly men between 25 and 40 years old), but also to make more people aware of this hobby and, therefore, of the most important company in the sector: the one that set a hobby and nowadays is an empire, something that I believe is not well reflected in their current logotype. It is clear that is not a hobby for children (mainly males between 15 and 25, or even younger), but many fans of this type of games started when they were very young, so I do not think it is a good idea to ignore this sector of the audience.

I visited then their small but cosy shop in Leeds where they have very friendly and passionate staff. When speaking to them you do not feel you are talking to an employee, but to a very informed geek that is there to help you, which I think is great. It was clear to me that they emphasise the miniatures placing them on the center of the store on a big table with impressive battlefield details, ready to be used for a game and check how awesome the miniatures look during a game. Everything is very three-dimensional, pleasant to touch and crafts are definitely involved, as there is a big shelf with different types of paints, brushes and other tools to customise the miniatures.

It is also important to notice that earlier this year they radically changed the appearance of their headquarters in Nottingham, which is also a museum and the dream place that every fan wants to visit. I was there once two years ago or so, something I thought I could use as well to redefine their identity. They released the Age of Sigmar, a new era for their most popular game, Warhammer. This supposed the replacement of the iconic Space Marine for the Stormcast Eternal Astartes and the Imperial Aquila for the Age of Sigmar heraldry. With this maneuver, it is clear to me that Games Workshop wants to leave behind what they used to be and set a new era, something that is clearly missing in their logotype. Another interesting fact is that the Age of Sigmar makes the new games unplayable with old miniatures, something that really bothered many fans of the company as miniatures are not cheap and it takes a long time to build an army for the game.

Before

After

It is clear that they want to start a new era in the company, but this radical decision seems to many an attack to loyalty rather than a fresh start. And this conflict of interests also served me as inspiration and an opportunity for Games Workshop to show their fans that they are actually bringing the best for them and this is why they decided to move on instead of sticking in the past, where they did pretty much everything they could. It is also important to notice that despite they also manufacture an important game as it is Lord of the Rings tabletop wargame, they clearly want to brag about Warhammer universe, which is entirely created by them.

Age of Sigmar symbol

2.- Idea generation

After the research I made a mind map to see how the facts I gathered could be leaded into a new design. I first stated the visual identity. The logotype needs to reflect the empire they are, therefore it has to convey power. The tone of voice also has to be epic! If their games are about fantasy and adventures that is also a must to be included in the design. And if their most important goal is to sell the best miniatures in the world then it was also important to do something three dimensional that looked high end, like their miniatures. I also considered to include the iconic Space Marine as some possible negative space as a tribute to old fans' loyalty, but it was not just impossible (I vectorised the contour of this statue and tried to place it in different parts of the text), but I also realised that is not what they are looking for in their mission statement. I also made notes and I also made some scribbles and sketches on paper.

Mind Map

Sketches

I started looking for some inspiration in different companies of videogames, tabletop games and comics with very similar aesthetic, such as Blizzard, Marvel, Wizard, Wizards of the Coast or Martian Manhunter. None of these approaches really convinced me, so I checked epic products instead of companies, such Lord of the Rings or Game of Thrones. Starring at these two logotypes for a while and thinking why they work so well I realised that these two products have loads of fans even though they are not necessarily geek. They managed to reach that amount of different types of audience and of course the reason was not just the logotype, but surely it had something to do with that fact. That was what I was looking for.

Researching a little bit more, I realised that roman typefaces such as Trajan, Cresci, Andrade, Cantoria or Garamond were not just into the aesthetics I was looking for, but also they were useful for many other purposes (Vignelli knew well when choosing Garamond amongst his top 6). Then I started to experiment with these typefaces.

Top - Cantoria, Mid - Trajan, Bot - Garamond

Top - Cresci, Bot - Andrade

Trajan inscription on stone.

I thought Trajan gave me a much better result because its clearness and how the lowercase is designed as an uppercase, something it really attracted me to convey the epic feel I was mentioning before, so I decided to produce the logotype using this typeface. Another element I thought important to include in the logotype was the logo of the Age of Sigmar, replacing the last 'O' of 'Workshop' with it.

Age of Sigmar vectorised symbol

3.- Production

I first started with the word 'Games' aligned with the 'W', as most of the people that know the company refers to it just as 'GW'. But there was a problem with the balance and I decided to do like in the original logo, making it also easier to recognise for people that already know the company. I opted for a tight kerning but leaving enough space between letters, so in smaller scales they do not overlap each other. This type of kerning felt appropiate if I wanted to keep the same general shape as the old logotype, and if I decided to use an unkerned design the word 'Workshop' would occupy a massive space. I also had to modify the leg of the letter 'R', otherwise the 'K' next to it would look quite far away. I also tried to make the leg closer the stem, but it did not work and made look the letter pretty unstable.

I experimented with red a yellow colours trying to keep a similar palette to the original logotype, but if I wanted an epic three dimensional logotype I had to get rid of that plastic feel the original logo has. Then I tried golden colours and I felt quite happy with the result, as at the bevel and emboss phase it matched very well with the three dimensional look, making the letters like if they were made of metal. This process made the logo look darker, but after some readjustments of levels, bevel and emboss and saturation I had the result showed on the bottom-right picture.

Once I finished this first draft, I thought it needed more quality and the letters needed to be thicker to make the bevel and emboss effect stand out more and make it work better in the added symbol. So I went back to the first phase and made the letters bigger and thicker in Adobe Illustrator. Once in Photoshop again, I painted the letters with a dark golden colour (#978253) and applied the bevel and emboss effect with hard chisel, very sharpen. Despite increasing the size to have a better result with bevel and emboss the Age of Sigmar symbol did not came up as expected, but the result was more than acceptable. I thought I could either keep those details as they were not too relevant to also please detail-aware customers (an usual kind of customer in this sector) or I could easily polish it in the future. I decided it to keep them for now. I also replicated the lighting done in the original logo, making the light coming from the top-left and projecting shadow on the bottom-right.

At this stage I was quite happy with the results. Even though, some kerning was necessary. When adjusted, I wanted to see how it would look at the end of some kind of epic animation, so I added this image as a background and used a screen blend mode with a white layer below it plus a hue and saturation adjusting layer to add the golden colour. The result was an image that seemed extracted from an animation about a battlefield just after the conflict, when everything is over. I also included the logo in the website and on some products to see how it works in those contexts. Sometimes the background can affect the legibility of the logotype, but a stroke around it should sort this problem easily, making it look a little bit like the original logo.

The logo was ready to be shown at the group critique to see what things can be improved as I did not know what else to do to it. I have another week after it to work on the final outcome, so I will use it to experiment with the advice I will get from my peers and tutor.