#Moving <set color="#9cff00">a community</set>
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Designing an esports brand that puts fans at the centre.


ESL Gaming

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#### In brief
For 25 years ESL has been the world’s leading esports company. But competing in a saturated category, the company needed to drive fan engagement. We partnered with ESL to develop ‘Live Legendary’, a new creative platform and refreshed brand identity, launched to coincide with its 25th anniversary.

‘Live Legendary’ encapsulates the unique role ESL plays in bringing the esports community together to create legendary moments, and celebrates the fan passion that created this global phenomenon in such a short space of time.

#### What we did
‘Live Legendary’ heroes the fans and encapsulates the spirit of the global esports community. It is an attitude for the brand to represent, to inspire in its audiences not just at esports tournaments, but in every walk of life — be epic, live with energy and passion, create legendary moments. 

The visual expression is a purposeful clash of historical versus modern visual cues to represent the legacy esports has created in such a short space of time. We combined old and new elements with a playful and futuristic twist. In a community-centric approach, we literally put fans at the heart of the identity, spotlighting community members and elevating them to legendary status. 

We developed a bespoke typeface called ‘Legendary’ inspired by stone-carved engravings. This typeface is also used to create background patterns in the identity by rotating the typeface 45 degrees and using close crops of words to create a visual juxtaposition between the historically inspired typeface and modern graphic imagery.

The identity maintains the equity of ESL’s previous colour palette, using a near-neon green and an expanded palette of yellows and greys — distinctive, bright and contrasting colours that stand out in the category.

To engage the community and generate buzz, we took 3D scans of real ESL community members at events, captured and rendered as 3D marble statues. A playful twist on classical statues of ancient heroes updated for the modern age. The statues bring authenticity to ESL’s community-centric approach, literally immortalising the fans.

Working in partnership with ESL’s leadership team, we launched the new brand in August 2024 at the IEM Cologne, one of EFG’s most iconic tournaments. The global identity has now been adopted across channels and markets, reaching ESL’s global audience of 225m fans.

> “Design Bridge and Partners are world-class partners who we’ve entrusted for the past 6 years as an extension of our team — helping us to create a brand that has been instrumental in achieving our $1bn valuation. Design Bridge and Partners has also created our truly ground-breaking creative platform, demonstrating an unrivalled understanding of our internal stakeholders and our most importance stakeholders… our global fans.”
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> *— Rodrigo Samwell, CCO, ESL FACEIT Group*
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> “Live Legendary is a new creative platform that reclaims ESL’s heritage as a leader in moving esports into the mainstream and making heroes of not just pro players, but also ESL fans. This is a significant and exciting chapter in ESL’s journey to the top, and we are proud of the part we have played in helping to make ESL the category-defining esports entertainment brand.”
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> *— Marta Swannie, Creative Partner, Design Bridge and Partners London*

For 25 years ESL has been the world’s leading esports company. But competing in a saturated category, the company needed to drive fan engagement. We partnered with ESL to develop ‘Live Legendary’, a new creative platform and refreshed brand identity, launched to coincide with its 25th anniversary. ‘Live Legendary’ encapsulates the unique role ESL plays in bringing the esports community together to create legendary moments, and celebrates the fan passion that created this global phenomenon in such a short space of time.


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Creating a brand for ESL that puts fans at the heart of the identity. Spotlighting community members and elevating them to legendary status.


Design Bridge and Partners | ESL

Superunion and Design Bridge come together to create Design Bridge and Partners. Redefining what design is and what design can do for brands, businesses, people and the planet. We are a revolutionary design partnership.

Design Bridge and Superunion come together to create Design Bridge and Partners. Redefining what design is and what design can do for brands, businesses, people and the planet. We are a revolutionary design partnership.

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ESL Gaming

Moving a community