Ubisoft unveils masterbrand for strategy game Anno

Video game company Ubisoft has partnered with Wolff Olins and Widen+Kennedy Amsterdam to create the first ever masterbrand for strategy game Anno. Ubisoft hopes this rebrand will be flexible to align with current and future games in the series.

Ubisoft is a video game publisher that is responsible for series such as Assassins Creed®, Far Cry® and Just Dance®. It teamed up with Widen+Kennedy Amsterdam to create a launch campaign and Wolff Olins to create a design system for Anno ahead of its latest instalment, Anno 117: Pax Romana. 

Anno is a strategy, economic simulation game created in 1998. In the hope of galvanising the video game series' fanbase, the agencies were tasked with ‘sparking a desire to build’.

Wolf Ollins developed the design ethos ‘Crafted with Care’ to inspire a handmade, crafted brand aesthetic. The design features an ‘A’ symbol that takes on different material textures to reflect the game's many worlds and ages. 

With aesthetics taken from the classical period, the masterbrand’s colours, typeface and graphic language underpin a design system that aims to celebrate craftsmanship. 

Wayne Deakin, global principal at Wolff Olins, says, “Anno is a game all about building and craft, so the core of our idea was a design ethos to create something more tangible in the real world which could be seamlessly brought into the digital world.

“We believe that by embodying the spirit of creation, the brand will resonate with the passionate community of Anno players for whom every detail is a labour of love too.”