Ride & Crash is a collective of creative minds, with a mission to create video games in the borderland between music, artistry and gaming culture. They work in close collaboration with established music performers, fine artists and brands. The company was co-founded by Robert Chirico Willstedt, who previously co-owned FEO Media, the company behind Quizkampen - one of Sweden's most popular gaming apps, and Emil Winkler, a former musician turned attorney-at-law and law-firm owner.
The gaming industry start-up turned to Lundgren+Lindqvist to design their full visual identity, including stationery, signage for the headquarters in Stockholm and the company's website.
Setting out from the founders' background in the music industry*, the music centric themes of many of their projects, as well as the lighthearted nature of many video games, the new visual identity revolves around a playful and flexible system.
The words making up the company's name represent two opposites. The two entities are very much echoes of the two founders; with Willstedt assuming the role of the polished businessman (RIDE), while Winkler plays the devil's attorney in his trademark rugged fashion (CRASH).
The two words of the name have seemingly crashed into each other, removing chunks of the bottom of 'RIDE' and top of 'CRASH' respectively. This was accomplished by printing the two words at the exact same position on two separate sheets of paper and carefully tearing the top sheet before scanning and painstakingly tracing the rugged edge. The notion of the two word's crash into each other is further emphasised by the use of a cool blue for 'RIDE' and a fiery red for 'CRASH'. Like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, the two halves become one and belong together even when they drift apart. There cannot be a crash without a ride. What goes up, must eventually come down.
Following the same concept, the typographic treatment features left-aligned lines of text meeting right-aligned counterparts, creating rugged floods - something graphic designers and typographers normally work hard to avoid.
To illustrate the company's signature hands-on approach when working on a new game, it was decided early that a physical experience would best complement the digital side business. Wanting to both allow for flexible implementation and to convey the playfulness which is at the very root of what they do, a system of different sized rubber stamps was designed. Apart from the split wordmark in different sizes, the set of stamps also include a full 'RIDE' stamp (approval) and a 'CRASH' stamp (disapproval), the founder's fingerprints (slightly altered to avoid identity theft) as well as the contact information for the employees' business cards. The result is a stationery set in which every piece is unique and made specially for its recipient.
The website is built around the same playful approach, with lines of text animated in a scrambled fashion as the visitor scrolls or swiped through its sections. When you reach the bottom of the site, the screen turns red and is quickly filled with multiple 'Game Over' indications. After a while, a counter prompts a 'restart' launching the visitor back to the websites' top.
* Ride and Crash are the names given to the two cymbals found in most drum kits.
