New Docs Show QuakeCon 2024 Rebrand Was Powered by WordArt and Panic

In a Cache Me Outside exclusive, QNN’s own Horsebyte has unearthed a trove of files—some half-deleted, some disturbingly intentional—revealing the full story behind QuakeCon 2024’s now-infamous WordArt-fueled rebrand.

According to leaked internal Trello boards and a series of extremely cursed Canva exports, the branding overhaul began after the acquisition of a single Microsoft Word license. What followed was not a strategy session, but what insiders are now calling “a digital fever dream powered by BAWLS and bad memories.”

“I walked in expecting mood boards,” said Darcy Flynn, a freelance design contractor hired for the rebrand. “Instead, I got a slideshow with 14 different WordArt styles and someone shouting ‘Bring back bevels!’”

The key pitch deck, codenamed ‘Project Retro Vomit’, was led by an unnamed branding executive who wrote in Comic Sans and presented entirely in PowerPoint’s ‘Origami’ transition mode. One slide, simply titled “LET’S GET UGLY,” featured a blinking Clippy giving a thumbs up.

Leaked meeting notes included phrases like “peak irony is peak engagement,” “just copy a school flyer from 2003,” and “if it hurts the eyes, it’ll stick in the brain.” In what appears to be a final design note: “1997 called and we’re answering.”

Horsebyte gained access to the original source files by exploiting an unsecured network printer labeled “DO_NOT_USE_PLZ.” When confronted, QuakeCon’s Head of Visual Continuity, Brock Mallard, replied: “We were trying to be disruptive. Mostly to people’s vision.”

Despite widespread backlash and fan memes branding the design “a war crime against graphic design,” the WordArt branding somehow stuck for the entirety of the 2024 convention. According to internal Slack threads, the phrase “it’s too late to stop now” was used at least 17 times.

No WordArt was harmed in the making of this article. But it should have been.