19 replies to this topic

[Koshmaar]

Hey guys, I'm making a flash game for internet (2d, not the typical casual), and here is first logo project in three versions, which differ mainly in font use.

I'd love to get your feedback on the general quality of logo, as well as which font combination looks best to you. Thanks!

Arial:


Lithos:


Hobo:


PS as for the game, you are ninja cat, who's fighting with zombie dinosaurs ;) in a way similiar to (spoiler alert) Typing of the Dead.

[MrDaaark]

I would ditch the sword. It clashes heaviliy, and it's poorly cropped.

[Koshmaar]

Hehe, thanks for fast reply, and because I still have PS opened...



I agree that katana doesn't look like the rest of logo, it's different. Without it, for me, logo looks rather montonous (obviously now I could differ colors and texture of text). Also katana visually showed the ninja part of the game, just as claw footsteps are showing cat and dino.

[MrDaaark]

It only looks monotonous because you used someone's font instead of drawing your own logo up. Arial is for writing up documents, not making ninja cat game logos. So you don't have a logo, you have 2 lines of plain text.

Give Ninja Cat his own logo, with a drawn image, then put a vs Zombie Dinosaurs in it's own stylized glyph.

[Ashaman73]

You can try to add some color gradient, you know the industry standard (orange-blue). Make the ZDs more like red, maybe some blood on the dino claw and add dark night blue to the ninja cats, maybe adding a ninja mask on a letter. And change the "and" to "vs" to hint a conflict ?

[Koshmaar]

Arial is very similiar to Helvetica, which is used to create logos all around the world. I'm not sure Daaark what you mean by "give ninja his own logo, with drawn image". More stylized fonts are explored in the third version (with a sword). I don't really have time to play with hand created caligraphy, as a sole programmer, designer, artist and businessman on this project, I'm going with shortcuts in many areas, that's why I want to use existing font. I like the shape of letters from above images, and their not plain thanks to bazillion of effects it's just the same color scheme used all around without any accents makes it dull and boring (hence katana was born).

Thanks Ashaman, I'll try with "industry standard colors" and differentiate with color. "And to vs" - I was thinking about that for some time, I think "and" is more open to interpretation and brings more curiosity (ninja cat and zombie dinosaurs - what they're gonna do, play doctor?), while "vs" is clearly conflict.

Any other comments, ideas and suggestions? Oh, and to clear things up: I'm not going for *perfect* logo, which makes everyone drool. I just need a good enough one.

Edited by Koshmaar, 19 October 2012 - 04:50 AM.

[MrDaaark]

I'm not sure Daaark what you mean by "give ninja his own logo, with drawn image

I mean kill off the arial, and use the vector drawing tools to draw up a nice, proper, logo.

[Drakken255]

I think what Daaark is saying is a game logo is not going to be good with just a text layer. You need to manually DRAW the text to give it more style. Make a logo focusing solely on Ninja Cat, then it's safe to add "VS. Zombie Dinosaurs" as a subtitle. I suggest a cat in the background, also manually drawn. Maybe with a sword splitting a letter in half? It all boils down to originality. Give it your own touch. Don't use pre-made graphics, not even fonts. Not unless it fits perfectly, and you have the creator's permission.

[MA-Simon]

Regarding your three fonts, I think "Lithos" looks the best here. Though I don't like the font... but I know what look you are aiming for.

But anyway. I had a few minutes and made some doodles. (Which are obviously in a komplete different style, but I didn't want to put them into my trash can either.)

[Koshmaar]

Wow guys, thanks for all the feedback you gave! Doodles

Thanks to your ideas, I created this:




Which IMHO looks much better then the first ones. I didn't go with the custom "fonts" yet, first wanted to nail the colors, but I think I'll do sth with ninja font only, zombie for me looks good enough. Also, I will make the blood splash more realistic by using smaller droplets and more color variations, currently I have resolution dependence due to outline filter.


I'm waiting for your comments

PS lesson learned: disable Flux while designing, only now I see how washed away it was.

[jbadams]

That's looking much more interesting!

[MA-Simon]

The new green Dino font looks really good!

[Koshmaar]

Hehe, thanks, it's true crimes, can be downloaded from here http://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/True-Crimes and from what I've read, it's completely free, also for commercial purposes.

[MrDaaark]

Actually, it says you have to contact the author's agent: http://www.waltervelezart.com/fonts.html

FontSquirrel is just being lazy about it, and possibly illegally hosting them to begin with.

New Logo looks much nicer though.

[Koshmaar]

Ups, don't believe what they say on the internets.



Another version, with partly inspired partly custom ninja font:



IMHO looks better still, but perhaps could be better? How? I looked at it so much, I don't see anything objectively anymore. Perhaps change composition, more elements like shuriken/katana, less stuff, lighting, different contrast or brightness, richer texture, do something with the footprints, less flashy efects or on contrary etc.

I'm asking just for completness, other than that I think logo is good enough and moving to other areas.

Edited by Koshmaar, 22 October 2012 - 04:45 AM.

[DaveTroyer]

I think that second logo with the more script like "Ninja Cat" is pretty dang good.

But, maybe the dino foot print is a lil' big. It draws the eye to the right quite a bit because of it's size and the bright green. If you play around with it a little, I'm sure you'll find a perfect balance.

Aside from that, having a raster graphic isn't too bad as long as you make it fairly large, but having a vector version will help with scale-ability when you're marketing your game. (Just so you can scale up without a ton of jaggy edges and pixels.)

All that being said, I think it's looking good! You're on the right track!

Edited by DaveTroyer, 22 October 2012 - 12:55 PM.

[Ashaman73]

Ahh... much better.
But I would be careful about the color you choose. Most dominant are the dinos and 'AND' and the cats are just background. Use some more color, here's a little paint over attempt:

Attached Thumbnails

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[MrDaaark]

You shoudl make the Ninja Cat part in reddish orange, as it will compliment the color green in the zombie part, and they will make each other pop.

[Koshmaar]

Thanks for the feedback, I scaled down dino foot, added slight blueish tint to cat, made other many small tiny improvements. I played with more colors, nothing come out of that. It's good enough for me, I'm done with it.





Thanks again! You're gonna be in credits

Edited by Koshmaar, 24 October 2012 - 09:47 AM.

[Prinz Eugn]

I think it looks great, much better than the earlier iterations.