Taking the Game Up a Level: The Homa Rebrand Explored

Established in 2018 and headquartered in Paris, Homa recently underwent a rebrand in order to expand the current business and encourage game developers to use their platform to create high-performing video games.

Put simply, Homa are a gaming technology company that gives creators and game developers the tools and data to turn their video game ideas into a reality.

To attract more developers to their gaming lab the brand worked closely with Ragged Edge, who designed a brand new identity for the company, helping them to identify with each and every user and creator.

So, let’s get into the details of todays rebrand!

HOMA stacked logo version
Credit to Underconsideration

The Logo

The new logo was a more obvious choice compared to the last, as there is now more of an emphasis on the pixelation of each letter used (not only in the logo but across the brand too!)

Each letter is perfectly squared off, creating a neat logo shape that provides a better tie-in to the fact that the company is centred around video games.

As the brand name has only 4 letters, each of these letters can be stacked on top of one another creating a larger square as shown in the image above.

This fits nicely above the tagline “game the system” and is equally better suited to fit onto branding elements such as the SDK SD card and the smartphone loading screen.

This concise and tidied-up logo provides a contrast to the wider gaming landscape imagery that is more chaotic and everchanging when animated.

Equally, this new logo does a much better job of outlining Homa as the video game expert, rather than a video game company.

Gaming landscape
Credit to Underconsideration

The Gaming Landscapes

Moving onto the more creative element of this rebrand now with the gaming landscapes created in collaboration with Visual Citizens.

These were in fact the first images that caught our eye when researching this rebranding project due to the brilliant colour palette that is unusual for the world of gaming, making it all the more appealing.

The designers used neutral tones for the landscapes, not forgetting to tie in the main pastel and neon pinks, creating a warm sunset-like palette with beiges, oranges, pinks, and purples.

There are also small introductions of green and blue in some of the landscapes which help to break the imagery up and also provide a more realistic touch as for example the grass and foliage in some landscapes are green.

Not only this, but each landscape design provides a range of different textures meaning they almost look like real rural environments but with a twist.

Each of the landscape images we came across are fashioned to look like the countryside but perhaps on another planet. There is a nice mixture of grass, water, and rocky surfaces but often the colours are mixed up to create scenes that look real at first glance, but upon further inspection look like something from outer space or a new and unseen gaming world.

These gaming landscapes do a great job at breaking through the predictable pixelated look of others out there, and each one really comes to life when animated.

Homa gaming
Credit to Underconsideration

Animation

One thing this rebrand would suffer without is the use of animation.

It’s only right that this new identitY included moving features across the board, as Homa are a gaming lab supporting creators and developers.

Let’s begin with the gaming landscapes as each one is blended together through animation.

Each element for example a lake, or a boulder changes as a laser-type line flashes across the screen. It reminds us of a photocopier or a printer flash that zips across each section of the landscape image and it does a great job of transporting you to another world.

In addition to this, the logo is animated in all of its forms and this is a stronger nod to the pixelated video game style of animation. For the stacked logo, each letter flickers through the Homa alphabet of letters and symbols before landing on H, O, M, and A to spell out the brand name.

This then remains static as the background shows a very blurred-out video of different games being played by users.

For the regular logo, the animation is fairly similar with each letter flickering through from left to right on the pastel pink background and this style of animation is also used for the icons created for this rebrand.

These animations help to elevate the design choices made by Ragged Edge, Visual Citizens and Homa, and help to identify the company as the go-to gaming specialist.

Taking the Game Up a Level: The Homa Rebrand Explored

That’s a wrap on this week’s rebrand!

This new identity seems to hit all of the right futuristic notes and avoids positioning Homa as a company selling video games and instead puts the emphasis on knowledge, data, and a platform for creation.

The gaming landscapes and animations are by far the best aspects of this rebrand, as they bring a sense of other-worldness that the previous identity failed to do.

Equally, the sunset colour palette used for the landscapes, and the use of pink as the pillar colour, helps to set Homa apart from other gaming platforms, creators, and studios avoiding the primary colours we see all too often!

This new look strikes up a great balance between including traditional pixelated animations and icons and creating an exciting and unique platform for creators and developers to let their imagination take over.

Of course, this is just our take on the Homa rebrand, but we would love to know what you think! Let us know what you liked and what you think they could have done more effectively via the social links below.

Hola, I'm Glen, Head of Design at Canny. I feel like the elder statesman at Canny, from being in a tiny box office to travelling the world. I help clients get the most out of their brand visually, whether that be on the web or the real world.

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