Giving Anno, Ubisoft’s flagship city-building game, its first ever major rebrand – one designed to “spark the desire to build”.

Cultivate the Joy of Building

After 25 years and 7 instalments, Anno had solidified its position as a top city-builder game with over 4 million players, but lacked a clear brand purpose and design system to make it iconic.

Following the appointment of Brand Director Haye Anderson in 2023, Ubisoft saw an opportunity to elevate Anno from a niche strategy game into a premier world-building brand. Tasked with crafting a robust and compelling brand identity system, we sought to not only capture Anno's spirit of craftspersonship and construction, but also forge a path for future versions of the game and change how video games can show up in the market.

Crafted with Care

In an industry racing toward digital and AI, we returned to the roots of a builder game – craftspersonship, tradition, and the joy of building. Centred around the design ethos (and brand statement) 'Crafted with Care’, the new identity celebrates the core game idea of giving players the creative freedom to cultivate their own worlds and experiences through building.

The new ‘A’ logo mark represents the collective mindset of the Anno community – fusing craft, the power of the human spirit and the ambition of building. Meticulous in detail and crafted with care, the symbol guides the community to shape what they build within the game.

In collaboration with artist metalsmith Owen Phillips of Gate Foot Forge, we crafted a physical version of the symbol from scratch using raw materials. The learnings from this process were then injected back into the design of the digital mark, ensuring an authentic experience.

Every material and graphic element is meticulously designed to inspire players' creativity, with the symbol taking on different material textures to nod to the different worlds and ages the game can expand into, while the negative space informs the new in-game cursor.

Anno’s brand colours, typeface and graphic language all draw from the classical period. The masterbrand colours (Bronze Blue and Stone) reflect the more universal natural building materials used throughout history, while the game-specific colours are relevant to the time period and the dyes that were available then (Tyrian Purple, Plum and Scroll for the latest release set during the Roman Empire).

All these elements come together to create a system that celebrates craftspersonship, while inspiring and supporting the game purpose of building.

Impact

Anno’s refreshed brand lives across every touchpoint of the experience, from 3D elements and in-game easter eggs to Twitch emotes, desktop icons and game pack, marking a significant shift in gaming by bridging the gap between the real and digital worlds. Through its scaling up of resources and meticulous craft, Anno is already inspiring a broader shift within the industry towards more refined and immersive experiences.

The impact was felt instantly, with the refreshed identity increasing brand press coverage by 245% and capturing 8.7M organic views of refreshed brand videos. Since launch, Anno has seen a 106% increase in brand engagement compared to previous Anno game reveals and a 92% positive community sentiment at reveal.

The work has received accolades across industry and design press, including in It’s Nice That’s Top 5 Branding Moments of 2024 for ‘redefining what gaming aesthetics can be’.

The identity has inspired a surge of user generated content within the Anno community, where fans have adopted the new symbol as their own – casting it out of metal, featuring it on their nail art, and recreating it within the game itself.