Imagining a sophisticated, tech-focused brand for the cloud-based solution to multiplayer games
The project
Hathora is a serverless cloud platform for multiplayer games. Built by infrastructure engineers from Palantir, Databricks, and AWS, Hathora provides the tools necessary to build, launch, and scale multiplayer games without downtime. Our project with Hathora began with a complete, ground-up branding process that would later be applied to their new website and present Hathora to the world as the #1 solution for game studios and developers.
The challenge
Combining a techy, game-like feel with the seriousness and professionalism required to build trust in users
The team came to us with just a few brand assets to work with: A logo and simple landing page, Github and Discord servers, and contacts for game developers who successfully built and launched games using Hathora to interview about their experiences. The next step was our job: Building Hathora a brand that reflected them as the knowledgeable, trustworthy experts that they are while keeping it exciting.
Possibly the biggest challenge we faced when taking on this project was the tight timeline leading up to the launch date for the website–Less than two months from when we began the branding process to when the site would be launched. We knew that meant we had to define Hathora’s brand as quickly as possible, without losing quality and ensuring our client was satisfied at every step. We achieved it with a combination of agile methodologies and stellar communication between teams.
The solution
Hathora’s branding process left no stone unturned. It included:
1. Indicius’s custom Brand Narrative Workshop to define the brand’s purpose and personality
2. A moodboard phase to pick which references and visual themes aligned most closely with the Hathora team’s vision
3. Brand design rounds to pick the final colors, logo, typography, and graphic elements
The brand elements created during this process included an updated version of the logo, which was formerly a flaming hammer. Hathora means hammer in Hindi, and represents the ease of game building on the platform, so it was crucial that we maintained this element. The new logo features a sleeker hammer that has a gradient of color across it, representing the power, energy and agility that Hathora’s tools hold.
The typographies were selected to give a tech-like feel and reflect the typography used in code, while the new color palette added fresh pops of color to the dark mode theme that developers know and love.
We also began working on the animated illustrations that would accompany the website and all Hathora-branded materials, which are made up predominantly of connected lines with color gradients running through them–a representation of infrastructure, agile data exchange and global connection when playing multiplayer games. Our goal with these illustrations was to strike a balance between abstract concepts and the actual infrastructure that keeps cloud-based games up and running.
The results
A Brandbook: a manual that lays out all of Hathora’s essential brand elements along with guidelines for how to use them
This brandbook meant that not only could the branding team hand their work over to the UX/UI team to build the new website, but it also sets Hathora up to be self-sufficient in the future. Whenever they want to create new designs or marketing materials, they’ll have the brandbook at hand with all the assets they need.
Hathora’s brandbook included the new logo in all its variations, typography with usage guidelines, color system and guidelines, illustrations, and examples of applications that combine all the brand elements in different compositions on the web and in ads.
Now Hathora has a cohesive, professional brand to step out into the gaming world as the trailblazers they are.
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