Role
In-House Lead Graphic Designer

Services
Brand Identity
Logo Design
Brand Guidelines
Illustration/Typography
Presentations
Website Design
Packaging
Social Media Posts and Banners
Event Booth Design and Graphics
Business Cards
Merchandise

Brief
Create a new production and publishing video game company for all digital and physical formats. This new brand will focus on games that meet specific “Brand Pillar” requirements and are franchise material. To build a massive global community of engaged loyal fans by launching and maintaining beloved video game franchises. The brand should be: disruptive, premium, credible, reliable, adaptive.

Challenge
Position Modus as the disruptive newcomer that bucks the trends. Not corporate stiffs (we are the opposite of EA and Activision). Act more like a cool developer, less like a stodgy publisher. Nonconformists, defiant. What Tarantino is to the movie industry. What Banksy is to art. Jon Snow, the Bastard Heroes.
When I received the brief, the company name “Modus” had not been finalized so I worked with “Nameless” as a placeholder so the research and development process could be started.

Unique Solution
We researched thousands of styles and references, and did 9 rounds of creative exploration focused on 4 main categories:

  • “Hollywood” - epic, bold, and 3D. References: Suicide Squad, Deadpool, Guardians of the Galaxy.

  • “Digital Hacker” - glitchy, digital, edgy, and dark. References: Rockstar Games, Mr Robot, Halt and Catch Fire, cyberpunk.

  • “Illustrative” - hand drawn, sketchy, more detail. References: Kojima Productions, Ed Hardy.

  • “Street Art” - hand painted, graffiti, rough textures and drips. References: Banksy.

The final solution embraced a sketchy street art style to help position Modus as the opposite of corporate.

MOOD BOARD
After collecting hundreds of references that were potential style directions based on 4 main categories that we identified during our research: “Hollywood”,”Digital Hacker”, “Illustrative”, and “Street Art”, I dove into the fun stage of rough concept creation, using “Nameless” as a placeholder since the name “Modus” was not yet finalized.

RESEARCH
Over several cups of coffee, I researched the market, competitors, and worked closely with the Head of Marketing to determine how we want to position Modus and where Modus fits in to the sea of video game publishers. At this point we actually didn’t have the name “Modus” finalized yet.

DESIGN, DESIGN, DESIGN!
After workshopping through rounds of feedback with the CEO and Head of Marketing, we had a direction! I was one happy designer. I busted out my favorite drawing tablet and started creating unique letterforms that had a street art vibe, but didn’t cross the line into graffiti.

AHH, THERE WE GO
The bright green and blue gradient is just the right pop that this cool, non-stodgy brand needed, while also setting it apart from the competition.

CONCEPT DEVELOPMENT
The name “Modus” was finalized (yay!) and I received direction that the brand should be somewhere on the scale of corporate to street art. I then created a variety of concepts that fit within that range. Here’s a curated collection.

ALMOST THERE…
Huzzah! We finalized a logo! But wait…
Unfortunately we discovered a competitor launched their new brand at the same time, and their logo prominently displayed a diamond. After flipping over my table (not really), we adapted and updated our diamond to a hexagon, which had the added context of giving a subtle nod to the company’s branding history since Maximum Games used to don a hexagon icon.
To inject Modus’s disruptive, non-conformist, unique personality, I added a little rotation (little things can make a BIG impact).

Adapt or Die was the internal brand slogan to remind ourselves that sh*t happens, we can learn from it and come back stronger, and we don’t let challenges stop us from finding creative solutions, even if that means adjusting our strategy.