Being a person who loves games (and probably spends a little too much time playing them) my ears pricked up when I discovered that Insomniac Games had gone through a re-brand. After having a read of Insomniacs blog post on their new design I was surprised to find that they’ve gone through 5 separate changes of their logo (one very slight change in 2003). For me, this speaks to a company that’s on top of there game (excuse the pun) and knows their audience well!
The evolution of the Insomniac Games brand
The changes have been quite drastic between each re-brand (excluding 2003) and in the blog, Insomniac talks about making callbacks to the last iteration of the logo. Little things like keeping the Oversized O and the positioning of the word ‘games’ all give subtle but welcome nods to their previous designs.
Insomniac has said however that this is just the beginning of the re-brand process, they aim to be a more forward public facing-company with the setup of a Twitch Channel to go along with the logo. It seems to me that the rebrand isn’t just a change in look but more a shift in direction for a company as a whole.
The Verdict
I have to say I was quite shocked when looking through the comments on Insomniacs post regarding their re-brand. The vast majority were negative or saying that they liked the new logo but prefer the older version. I personally didn’t dislike the previous version (some of this feeling may be largely in part to nostalgia) and I think it worked well with the games Insomniac were making at the time of its use.
Even though I still appreciate the old logo I love the rebrand. The two crescent moons that form the O are a stroke of graphic design genius and the clean simple type help to reinforce the minimalist feel of the logo as a whole. With Insomniac developing the new Spider-Man game (Looks amazing!) which is due for release next year I think this rebrand not only gives them a fresh modern look but signals a movement towards a company that wants to make a statement and be taken more seriously in its industry.
Check out the blog post to get a more in-depth look into the design process.
All the logo’s displayed in this post are copyright of there respective owners