Abstraction Games

Abstraction is an international creative game studio working on titles like Dune, Halo, Mass Effect and Baldur's Gate 3. A brand that has grown alongside the studio's ambitions for seven years now.

Client

Abstraction

Industry

Creative Game Studio

Region

Netherlands

Scope

Brand strategy, brand identity, web design & development, content & campaigns

Duration

2019 - present

The situation

The company grew. The brand had to keep up.

Abstraction built its reputation on multiplatform porting and adaptations. But the studio kept developing. Co-development became increasingly important, and so did the ambition to develop its own IP.

The brand wasn't telling that new story yet. Abstraction was still strongly associated with the work that had made it big, while the studio was by then operating much more broadly. Time to look again at Abstraction's DNA and build a brand that made room for that next step.

The challenge

From porting to co-development

Abstraction was still strongly associated with porting and adaptations, while co-development and its own IP were playing an increasingly bigger role.

A brand that doesn't limit ambition

The identity had to fit Abstraction of today, and leave room for new services, its own IP and further international growth.

Making the culture visible

Taking on complex technical and creative challenges is deep in Abstraction's DNA. That mindset had to become tangible in the brand, without losing the studio's informal character.

Book Design Beyond Boundaries Absraction Stuurmen

Beyond Boundaries

In collaborative workshops, we uncovered Abstraction's DNA again. That's where Beyond Boundaries came from: an idea that captures exactly how the studio works. Abstraction doesn't avoid challenges. The more complex the problem, the more interesting it gets.

That idea became the starting point for the positioning, and for everything developed within the brand afterward.

Wall Posters Abstraction Grids Icons Branding Abstraction Mockup Stuurmen

Room to keep growing

The first visible step was the name. Abstraction Games simply became Abstraction. That removed the limitation of a descriptive name and created room for a broader range of services.

The logo mark distills Beyond Boundaries into one recognizable shape: a planetary horizon with a new world to discover behind it. The lowercase wordmark adds informality, while the symmetrical structure keeps the brand widely applicable.

Company People Playing Games Fooseball Abstraction Highfive

Person With Headphones In Office Working Looking In Camera Abstraction Stuurmen Case Photography

USB Stick Branding For Company Stuurmen Abstraction

Premium without becoming distant

Black and white form the foundation and give Abstraction a premium, boutique feel. Yellow is used deliberately sparingly to give the brand a more informal character.

The typography is big and bold, alternated with small contrasting text. That creates a visual system that communicates powerfully while still leaving enough freedom for different applications.

Abstraction Businesscards Design Stans Stuurmen Brannding Company

Typography GT Haptik Project Branding Abstraction Stuurmen

Culture becomes part of the brand

Beyond Boundaries is supported by values like be kind, each getting its own visual translation. That lets the system emphasize different messages without losing recognizability.

Photography also plays an important role here. Calm, minimal and human, with the people behind Abstraction front and center as much as possible. Because in the end, they are the brand.

Poster Abstraction Shapes Smiley Branding Brandsystem Art Stuurmen

Beyond Boundaries goes digital

The website carries the brand experience fully into digital. Typography, motion and interactive elements make the site more than a portfolio. A playable version of Pong and a visual nod to Super Mario 64 bring Abstraction's gaming culture directly into the experience.

Behind that experience sits a headless CMS with a connected recruitment environment. Today, the site presents Abstraction as a creative game studio for AA/AAA/III development, with projects like Dune: Awakening, Halo, Mass Effect and Baldur's Gate 3 front and center.

The homepage view when you land on the website

A desktop view showing the navigation as well as how many jobs are open

A desktop view of the website showing the games Abstraction is working on

Seven years building the same brand

The rebrand wasn't an endpoint. The collaboration with Abstraction kept growing, with ongoing support for content, banners, magazines, campaigns and other brand assets.

That's exactly what makes this case strong: Beyond Boundaries was never a temporary campaign concept. Years later, the same idea still forms the core of Abstraction and stands prominently on the current website.