Creating a playful identity for an award-winning game studio
Creative Direction / Concepting / Art Direction / Scriptwriting / Storyboarding / Design
The team at ustwo games were looking for a brand refresh that would help distinguish the studio from its sister company, ustwo, while still feeling connected to the people and games behind the brand.
The existing logo needed to remain, but everything around it was open for reinvention. The challenge was to create an identity system that felt warm, thoughtful and creatively flexible without simply replicating the visual style of the studio’s games.
Creative Approach
Background colours derived from each team member’s attire
The identity system was inspired as much by the people behind the studio as the games themselves.
Containing the existing logo within an organic but structured shape system allowed the brand to remain consistent while introducing flexibility and playfulness across applications. Soft geometric forms and a natural pastel palette created a visual language that felt calm, creative and human.
While the system subtly nodded to the worlds of Monument Valley and Alba, the goal was never to replicate the games visually. Instead, the identity was designed to reflect the studio’s thoughtful and collaborative culture.
The resulting system balanced structure with experimentation, creating a flexible identity capable of evolving across digital, social and marketing touchpoints.
Social media templates designed for flexible in-house content creation
Website Experience
Alongside the visual identity, I helped shape a studio website designed to feel more like meeting a creative team than navigating a corporate business.
A story-led structure, warm tone of voice and generous use of photography created a digital experience that felt approachable, thoughtful and quietly confident.
Responsive website designs developed around a user-friendly CMS
Brand Guidelines
To support long-term adoption of the identity, I designed and wrote the brand guidelines with a deliberately approachable and playful tone. Helping define not only how the identity functioned visually, but how it should feel creatively and culturally.
Rather than creating a rigid set of corporate rules, the system encouraged experimentation while providing enough structure to maintain consistency across the brand.
From evolving logo containers and shape systems to typography, colour and photography principles, the guidelines were built to feel intuitive, flexible and enjoyable to use.
My Role
I led the creative development of the project across visual identity, brand systems and digital experience design.
Other involvement included:
/ Creative direction
/ Brand identity design and copy
/ Visual system development
/ UI & UX design
/ Art direction
/ Stakeholder collaboration
The team gave us an awesome brand, developed through fun, inventive and inclusive practices. They have great communication and are super easy to work with. We can’t wait to work with them again.”
— ustwo games
