Headquartered in Bellevue, Washington, Valve Corporation is a well-known publisher and developer of video games that include the Half-Life, Left 4 Dead, and Portal series.
Defense of the Ancients, also known as Dota, is another popular Valve series that first debuted in 2003. Built for online multiplayer gameplay, the entire franchise includes competitive battle arenas, a digital collectible card game, and its most recent chess-inspired strategy installment, Dota Underlords.
YouWorkForThem was commissioned by Valve Corporation to design primary and secondary display fonts for use in Dota Underlords and in its subsequent marketing materials.
The primary character set we designed for Dota Underlords, Ravenhook, was based on the game’s logotype, which is a bold sans display font that features heavy all-caps lettering with rough brushstroke distressing along the edges. The characters in Ravenhook are exactly like what you’d find in a hand-painted advertisement seeking to hire a hero off the street.
In addition to this brawny primary character set, YouWorkForThem also crafted a secondary display font for the Dota Underlords project, Early Bird.
Standing in stark visual contrast to Ravenhook, Early Bird is a handcrafted, multipurpose peripheral type design with subtle calligraphic influences. This serif type design speaks with a much softer tone throughout, providing plenty of optional character flourishes as necessary for various design applications.
Ravenhook and Early Bird both provide language support for Russian and offer extended Latin characters.
YouWorkForThem worked with Valve Corporation under an extremely tight deadline for the Dota Underlords project, having both complete designs finished in time for the game’s launch on February 23, 2020.
Commissioning custom type designs from YouWorkForThem is easy — even when you’re working with narrow time constraints. We’d love to discuss your ideas and upcoming projects with you so if you’re interested in working with us, contact us today!
The Dota Underlords screenshots and videos above are Copyright © Valve Corporation. All rights reserved.
