Codenames publisher Czech Games Edition unveils new logo, calling old design “a little too serious”
Czech Games Edition, the publisher of titles including Codenames and Lost Ruins of Arnak, has revealed a new logo and mascot to “freshen things up” after 17 years under its former brand.
CGE’s new logo adds a winking version of an astronaut from Vlaada Chvátil design Galaxy Trucker, one of the first titles published by the company back in 2007.
A statement from CGE said, “Our old logo felt elegant but a little too serious, so we wanted to update it to better represent the playful, fun-loving spirit of the company.”
The rebrand comes ahead of a new website design planned for next year, and follows CGE making the surprise move of expanded into board game manufacturing six months ago by buying the factory it had used almost since its inception.
Czech Games made a name for itself in the late 2000s with Vlaada Chvátil-designed games including Through the Ages, Galaxy Trucker and Space Alert, before striking it big with word-guessing game Codenames in 2015.
More recent releases include The Lost Ruins of Arnak, Under Falling Skies and Kutná Hora: The City of Silver, while its 2024 releases include the hotly anticipated SETI: Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, which is currently top of the BoardGameGeek hotness charts in its Spiel Essen 2024 preview.
Other board game-related rebrands in recent years include BoardGameGeek itself, which unveiled a somewhat divisive new logo in 2019, and CoolMiniOrNot, which updated its logo in 2016 amid a shift to rebranding itself as CMON.
Pandasaurus Games revealed a new logo in 2020, saying at the time that while its old logo was adorable, it was also “hard to see and didn’t stand out on a shelf”.
Industry heavyweight Asmodee updated a crisp new logo in 2017, replacing the three jolly, colourful waving squares it has used since 2010.
