Many people consider branding (or in our case, rebranding) to be all about the “new look”. But the most significant changes for us as a company are happening on an internal level.

We’re solidifying our core values as a company, foraying into the blockchain space, and looking for talent willing to push boundaries.

None of that is visual.

The most significant change for us is about stepping out of the shadows, learning from our past, and embracing our history. As always, we are looking at sustaining our long-standing community with the nourishment we are more than eager to give.

Everything we do is for that community. We want them to be seen, heard, felt. We want them to thrive as creators on our platform. We want our players to express their personal style and find others like themselves. Whether you know them already or are meeting them for the first time, the people you meet through Kongregate should feel connected.

When you’re on the inside and looking to change, it’s easy to want to just start from scratch and completely alter your identity — but what we don’t want to do is take away all those memories we’ve experienced together.

Rather than sweep who we used to be under the rug, we want to highlight our strengths and face our weaknesses straight on. We’ve learned from our 16 years of history as a gaming company, and we know what makes us Kongregate: inclusivity, having fun, and doing it together.

So, everything we do when rebranding needs to exhibit those values.

From a product design standpoint, we want to visually reflect all of our internal changes — hence the new logo. We’re incorporating a more human-centered and community-centered color palette. We don’t just want to write a bunch of copy about what our core values are, we want to express it clearly and loudly. We want our users to experience it. Yes, our logo is different and our strategy has been re-imagined… but we’re protecting our most important qualities — community and fun — and letting everyone know that Kongregate is here to stay.

How do we do this? This is what we’ve been asking ourselves:

• How can we integrate inclusivity into our visual design?
• How can we bring our community on this journey with us?
• How can we have more fun together?

As we work to create the new look of Kongregate, we use tools to go beyond web compliance guidelines. We have widgets in Figma that confirm our colors, contrast, and typography work visually, ensuring that colorblindness or dyslexia doesn’t interfere with our users’ experience. We are building new and exciting ways for creators to be a part of Kongregate.com. We are supporting Flash games by implementing top-of-the-stack emulators to preserve our history.

As we reveal the new look, we’re bringing our community along on the journey, reminding them that we continuously support our Flash gaming community while creating fun new experiences as we explore blockchain technology.

We’re taking strides to engage with our players more and get your direct feedback. We want to inspire our players to tell their stories and empower them to help us create the games they want to see.

We do this, not by stripping ourselves of our identity and replacing it with something different, but by building on our individuality and considering our core values in all aspects of the company.

We do this by living up to our motto. Kongregate — Fun, together.

If you’d like to learn more about our rebrand & relaunch, check out our AMA!