Xbox & Compulsion Games
- Visual Identity
- Key Art
- Logo Design
- VFX
- Brand Toolkit
- Tagline & Manifesto
- Social Guidelines
The Stories Are Real, Darling.
Overview
A real southern beauty.
Deep in the South, magic’s a-brewin’—South of Midnight is the new Southern Gothic adventure from critically acclaimed dev studio, Compulsion Games.
Xbox tasked Skylight with developing the Brand Identity assets that would bring the game’s unique stop motion inspired style to life, celebrate its Southern Gothic setting, and stand out against anything else in the space. That work led to a deeper partnership, with Skylight contributing to the logo animation, tagline and manifesto, VFX look dev, and more.
The resulting work all helped make South of Midnight a show-stopper unlike anything fans had ever seen.
ANIMATED END CARD
Not only did we partner with Compulsion to design the logo, we animated it as well. Our concept combined the weave motif with the bottle tree in the logo—two important lore details. The resulting teaser trailer would go on to win a Clio award.
KEY ART & LOGO
In our strategy phase, we realized the tastes of our target audience spanned beyond the aesthetics of traditional video games. The Southern Gothic tradition has a rich visual history in film and literature—and by marrying literary Gothic traditions with modern gaming vernacular, we created a VIS ID system that stood out from the crowd and captured attention.
VFX Design Direction
Hazel’s (the game’s protagonist’s) weaving abilities were central to the game, but the Compulsion team hadn’t landed on a weave VFX they were satisfied with. They tasked Skylight with developing the weave for the trailer, and we were thrilled when the studio loved it so much, it informed the in-game weave effect as well.
Bringing the South to Life on Social
Compulsion asked us to consider how the South of Midnight brand could live on their social channels and across marketing. We developed a set of easy-to-use templates for their team to quickly create impactful and consistent marketing assets.
