Tonic University

Branding

Mediatonic

Creative Director

Branding and identity design for a games design and development education platform.

Tonic University is an online, educational platform for game design and development.

Mediatonic is a UK based, indie game developer – famous for titles such as Fall Guys, Murder by Numbers and Amateur Surgeon. In 2020 they launched a platform that delivers training and educational content related to careers in the games industry. I worked with them to create an engaging visual identity.

A university for everyone

Grassroots entry into the games industry can be tough, and the roles are often confusing for anyone who's looked at the wider design industry. This has created a barrier to entry for young professionals.

Mediatonic have always been a big advocate of developing young talent, with links to many UK universities. But a digital, 'always on' platform takes this ethos and removes any kind of location, or financial gatekeeping – with access for everyone.

An identity that can stand alone, but play nice with existing family brands

The Tonic Games Group (TGG) are a collection of independent game dev studios, all with their own branding and aesthetic.

Content for the Tonic U platform was to be pulled from each studio, so it was important that those brands could live inside and amongst the Tonic U identity without causing friction.

To aid this, I built the Tonic U colour palette from the primary colours of each brand within the TGG.

For the primary, key brand colour we picked something unique so that Tonic U wouldn't be lost amongst the other brands.