878 AD

Hampshire Cultural Trust (HCT), 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.

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.

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.