Corbeau Racing

“Make a gaming chair” is quite possibly the most fun brief I’ve ever received. Automotive seat builder Corbeau set out to bring performance seating to the PC gaming crowd, and enlisted me to help break into a new market.

Serving as the primary brand strategist and copywriter, I worked hand-in-hand with some extremely talented visual & industrial designers to get under the hood of Corbeau and tinker with the brand’s core components; performance, style, and service. We created an entirely new visual identity and brand personality—from logo to color palette to brand voice—to expand the brand’s reach beyond the tarmac.

Gaming chairs are, frankly, hideous. They’re all made in the same factory, differentiated only by loud neon colors and childish logos. Discerning PC gamers—the type of person who regularly drops hundreds of dollars upgrading minor components in search of improved performance—must either fork over their money for one of these uncomfortable novelty items or settle for an uninspired, anonymous ergonomic office chair. 

By balancing performance and style, the Corbeau gaming chairs take subtle cues from their racing pedigree (diamond stitching patterns, 5-point harness cutouts etc.) to give gamers the same performance they see on their massive curved screens.

In the course of solving the original request to “make a gaming chair,” we identified another audience that craved performance at their desk; remote workers. Since the start of the pandemic these workers have spent countless hours in IKEA dining stools or their teenage son’s perpetually sweaty gaming chair. So we also designed an entirely new office line of chairs for people who craved performance seating without the stereotypical look of performance seating.