878 AD Brand Identity & Experience Design | Hampshire Cultural Trust & Ubisoft Collaboration

A still from an animation featuring a close up of a silver number with green and purple lighting

878 AD

Branding an award winning interactive experience

Hampshire Cultural Trust is a charity with 24 arts and heritage venues across Hampshire was developing a new visitor attraction recreating a key moment in Winchester’s Anglo-Saxon history. The experience was brought to life in partnership with international gaming company Ubisoft, using visuals from the video game franchise Assassin’s Creed® together with contemporary Anglo-Saxon objects from the trust’s collections.

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Branding Design systems Web design Brand & digital Visual identity WordPress Print design Illustration Photography Web development Brand refresh Brand strategy Logo design Graphic design UX design E-commerce Type design Digital design Social assets Merchandise API's & integrations Web hosting & service Creative direction Brand guidelines Signage Brochure design Tone of voice Animation & video

Sectors

Tech & innovation Community & education

When approaching the identity we played hours of Assassin’s Creed Valhalla and did a deep dive into Anglo-Saxon art and culture. The result was a design approach we named ‘‘Absorbing, Authentic and Anglo-Saxon’. We found their style is distinctive, intricate and stylistic, as it adapted to and absorbed new cultural influences to produce something inspiring for centuries to come. So we mirrored our design approach to emulate this methodology, drawing heavily from Anglo-Saxon art and merging that with the assets and essence of Assassin’s Creed Valhalla to create an authentic and immersible identity fitting for 21st century technology and audiences, all anchored into the city of Winchester.

A mock up of a dark website on a laptop, the screen reads 'Step into Anglo-Saxon Winchester'

When creating the 878 AD website we focused on sleek user experiences to help promote and sell tickets. We fused the 878 AD brand identity and Assassin’s Creed®: Valhalla UX to reflect the look, feel and immersion of the attraction it is selling. Fully responsive, packed with artwork, animation and Anglo-Saxon inspired UI elements the site really sells the level of detail and technological wonder that the audience has in store. We integrated the Spektrix ticketing API into the site and built a fully bespoke calendar, as well as modifying the rest of the booking process to produce a sleek, attractive and easy user journey.

A flat lay image featuring digital assets for 878 ad

A man in anglo saxon attire blows a horn to the sky

A room with wooden structures, on the back of the room is a large projection of an anglo saxon town

A black t-shirt featuring the 878AD graphic on the left chest

The alphabet in white using a designed font for 878 AD

Crafting a bespoke typeface

In order to work with the volume of stunning graphics and assets of the game, we had the brand elements use a lot of the visual identity from Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. But we wanted to create a unique asset that gave 878 AD something to stand out from its source material. In our research we found that Anglo-Saxon art was formed around calligraphy so we decided to make the voice of 878 AD a bold, powerful display typeface inspired by the calligraphy, carvings and inscriptions of the period. Edington Heavy is a high contrast serif with modern typographical features and alternative letters designed to work in harmony with the typographic style of it’s brand partners.