Previously known as Ultimate Games, Chaotic Games had evolved and was finally finding product market fit. As the founding designer, I Ied the company on all design efforts, including branding. The growth of Chaotic Games called for a more refined visual brand that better aligned with the team's expertise, product offering, and high-touch client experience. It also needed to situate itself as a more mature company to appeal to potential investors.
The brand mark is inspired by black holes and their symbolism. The team routinely embraces chaos, transformation and working with the uncomfortable unknown. It's what propels the company forward. The brand leans into the aggressive nature of chaos through color and form factor.
After creating a mood board of black hole imagery, I chose one image that best portrayed beauty and balance without sacrificing texture. I vectorized the image to break it into thousands of individual shapes. These shapes by themselves can be used to emphasize a sophisticated edginess that disrupts the cleanliness of negative space. When arranged together, their complexity might increase but so does the allure of the form factor, giving nod to the spirit and unpredictability of video games and the world wide web.
The choice of Contrail as a primary typeface was informed by the desire to incorporate a little bit of cleanliness and play into the branding. Its beveled corners and character slant adds a stable contrast to the unstable, unpredictable spirit of the mark. The balance of the two is best represented in the wordmark.
The modern geometric aesthetic of other engine and game brands was something we intentionally wanted to deviate from. Games creation is messy. As is the business of games as a whole. The Chaotic team doesn't shy away from this reality. "Rips," "scars," "cracks," "breaks," "instability" ...these are what builds the company's character and long term success. These are all found in company's visual identity.
More details about this project are available on request.
