InspirationSept 30, 2022

Quake modernizes two Hasbro Game Icons to create better fan experience

Barry Quinn shares the contemporary redesign of boardgame icons Risk and Avalon Hill by Quake.

Context

Hasbro Games (Pawtucket, Rhode Island) has updated the brand identities for two strategy board game icons. With the recent surge in the popularity of board games, Quake was commissioned to modernize the visual identities to match the fan experience. Risk and Avalon Hill have amazing histories, but we found the opportunity for their futures even more compelling. These are brands that people passionately love and they are anticipating changes in their market and preparing for them. That’s the type of opportunity we love to be a part of. These projects build on Quake’s strengths in working with fan-favourite brands.

Risk Legacy

Risk is a popular strategy game with legions of fans and decades of success. For many, Risk conjures up images of cannons and horses, but Risk is also a forward-leaning brand, having pioneered the “Legacy” format that permanently changes the board as you play. The rebrand brings to life a more contemporary Risk for a next generation of gamers. Later this year, a new Risk Legacy game called Shadow Forces will launch. It takes place in 2050 and deals with rising seas, viruses, firestorms, extreme weather, misinformation and nefarious factions vying to control the future of an incalculably powerful energy source. Quake was asked to create a new visual identity for Risk that would telegraph the contemporary nature of the new game and set the brand up for the future. Risk also needed a mark that could stay consistent and be unmistakable across many different game scenarios. The current logo lost the horse and flag and was reimagined in a clean sans serif that looks at home in the future battlefield of screens and technology. The rest of the brand-world was brought to life with animated video content, gear and swag for each future faction.

Credits:

Creative Director: Barry Quinn
ACD: Vy Vo
Logo Design: Dean Martin, Nick Shinn
Design Lead: Kevin Umana
Motion Graphics: JAXX
Photographer: Arash Moallemi
Producer: Sarah Marangoni

Avalon Hill

Avalon Hill (Hasbro sub-brand) is an iconic maker of board games with a portfolio that includes Risk, Betrayal, Hero Quest and Axis & Allies. They practically invented the combat-based strategy game category; however, in recent times, audiences of strategy games have broadened and game themes have become more varied, social and inclusive. Avalon Hill’s board games and audience has evolved, so it was time for the logo to do the same.

The Avalon Hill identity needed to connect with the gamers that would create the next chapter of success. It needed to be bolder and more graphic. As a master brand, it had to play nice with the aesthetics of strong game brands and emerging technologies. Lastly, it had to be visually comfortable with a greater variety of game worlds and audiences.

Quake produced a stylized ‘A’ with an embedded jagged hill that would become the visual shorthand for the brand name and turn it into a canvas for each game’s world.

Credits: