What on earth occurred to the Games Workshop emblem?

If you’re a nerd of a sure age, the purple and yellow Games Workshop emblem will likely be instantly acquainted. It as soon as emblazoned the little outlets in metropolis centres throughout the nation the place you possibly can purchase little plastic (or resin, or pewter) males (or elves, or dwarfs) and battle them towards each other utilizing an arcane algorithm.

These outlets, as soon as merely known as Games Workshop, now consult with themselves as Warhammer in an try to affiliate the model extra carefully with the video games being performed fairly than the company entity behind them, which has gone on to grow to be one in all Britain’s nice success tales. The Nottingham-based agency shared £18 million with employees in 2024 following pre-tax earnings within the tons of of thousands and thousands.

So maybe it was inevitable that, having divorced the id of its merchandise from the corporate behind them, it might succumb to the clear, dare we name it boring, emblem pattern that’s seen entities comparable to Google, Facebook and Jaguar undertake a line of sans-serif textual content over beforehand recognisable wordmarks.

The change hasn’t occurred to the Warhammer and Warhammer Community websites, they nonetheless have the hammer emblem on them, and it hasn’t occurred to pages like Games Workshop’s retailer community sources record, however it’s on the tabletop gaming large’s jobs web page, and on the high of the timeline it maintains to chart the corporate’s historical past, the place you’ll see different attention-grabbing makes use of of typography such because the fantastic outdated White Dwarf journal masthead from 1977, which actually does appear to be one thing Tolkien would have authorised of.

Dig just a little deeper, and yow will discover photographs of the primary ever Games Workshop retailer in Hammersmith, comparable to in this news story from En World. It’s a special medieval typeface, however nonetheless ties in with the fantasy battles the corporate was portraying. This was properly earlier than the launch of the grimdark universe of Warhammer 40,000, however the store nonetheless references science fiction on its signal.

In reality, the brand new typeface could also be a name again to the one utilized in this incredible effort from 1975, a befuddled-looking mouse underneath textual content of questionable kerning that screams of the form of home-made design the corporate was utilizing in its earliest days. As the timeline web page reveals, a detailed runner up as the corporate identify was ‘Games Garage’.

Sans serif fonts are perceived as being extra trendy, one thing that an organization (and certainly human) is anxious to show because it approaches center age. They’re additionally friendlier and extra approachable, particularly to youthful clients, although that’s most likely much less of a consideration for GW right here, because it’s not utilizing the brand new emblem for its retail shops. They’re additionally simpler to drop into totally different design contexts, and that is one thing the greatest logos are able to whereas remaining distinct and immediately recognisable, and are available out properly on workplace laser printers too.

So what’s occurred right here is that the consumer-facing shops have accomplished their rebrand to Warhammer, and the corporate behind them can now grow to be the form of entity that concentrates on pensions and cleansing contracts for its buildings. It might have Wood Elves and Flawless Blades up in arms (a number of arms, should you’re in a genestealer cult), however it’s precisely the form of factor you’d count on a contemporary firm to do.

Games Workshop has been approached for remark.