Art: S1 logo

[avaer]

This issue is for exploring logo designs for season 1.

The cold W really doesn't work with light designs I've been working on -- I feel like the the hard aesthetic of the grid clashes with things that stray from the grid.

Also, I want to kind of get away from the "W on a grid" in general. It hints at "metaverse" but that is a vague notion with a lot of baggage, it is impersonal, and the grid makes people think of land, which is the wrong place to start. It also doesn't seem very welcoming.

I threw this together with google images using stolen art:

https://www.pikpng.com/pngvi/iximwow_cherry-blossom-drawing-png-clipart/ https://www.vectorstock.com/royalty-free-vector/elegant-black-roses-design-vector-20046056 https://www.google.com/search?q=nature+svg+divider https://www.google.com/search?q=sakura+branch+svg

I tried to imply a lot of ideas with this:

• creativity
• openness
• markup <>
• cartoon logo
• convergence
• merging
• roads
• growth
• organic
• hand made
• high quality
• high tech
• caring
• good future
• park bench

By segmenting parts like this it would also allow for a lot of animation possibility in UIs.

Could use some variations playing around with this.

[avaer]

There could be a road/map motif in here somewhere too.

[avaer]

https://github.com/webaverse/assets/blob/master/logo-draft.ai

[avaer]

It could also be yin yang themed. The bottom right could be the hard angular "dark side" with the top representing the "light".

[avaer]

[avaer]

[avaer]

[avaer]

[avaer]

[avaer]

http://images.google.com/search?q=storybook+letters

[avaer]

https://www.pinterest.ca/pin/472103973414756728/

[GaladWarder]

Going to dump some stuff here - still a lot of work to go, hope you don't mind the looser sketching. If anything jumps out as especially good or bad, feel free to let me know

[GaladWarder]

Is there any 'icon' that really relates to Webaverse in the same way that Link's sword relates to the Zelda games?

I'm playing around with the Street, the W, and the pyramid, but they all feel a bit generic - let me know if anything comes to mind

[GaladWarder]

This is old, just putting it here for records reasons. Already got feedback on these, they aren't in the right direction

[GaladWarder]

Tried a totally different approach, seems like the previous ones weren't quite right. How is this direction? Playing more on the Street idea, as well as on the stylized nature of Webaverse, the Fortnite influences, and the magical/RPG elements

[avaer]

Great work!

Very interesting approach with the street fortnite concept.

The one thing that seems missing is the implication of creativity or exploration;

Perhaps if the letters were made from some other materials growing out of the street, like ancient vines, advanced tech or weird goops it would add more personality.

Another comment is that whereas the 3D street looks great it might be hard to draw (people suck at perspective). I would also try some flatter versions (maybe sideways or top down view, depending on how the letters are represented).

Would also be interesting to see how that concept can collapse into a square or circle shape for iconography.

The other word marks have interesting color+line ideas too. But the street plus fortnite combination is the best basis.

[avaer]

Also, the logo should have a hint of Japanese, or something hinting at non-western origins.

That was always implied with 山 and people generally picked up on that.

Although this font looks great and even adventurous, it loses a bit of that aspect. But there's probably also ways to add that influence back in with some sort of shape language like torii, sakura, or whatever.

[GaladWarder]

Thanks for the feedback - I can definitely work with that!

I'll see what I can do to pull in more of the creativity/exploration vibes, as well as making the Street simpler and pulling some Japanese vibes/influences in, as well.

I'll do another round of revisions iterating on the more fortnite-y style and see what I can come up with!

[Vianvolaeus]

I'm not particularly great with logos but wanted to try and pitch in to help! I imagine there's some kind of terminology for it, but one thing I see that's quite prevalent and usually effective is this kind of standout single letter in the typography of some text based logos / headers:

Some of them incorporate an existing logo into them or viceversa - take that element and run with it like a favicon etc.

I think the 山 can work great with the proposed ideas, it looks like spires, or something vines / ivy could grow from.

If I can think of any other logos etc that might be inspiring, I'll communicate them to you or drop them here / update

[GaladWarder]

This is super useful, thanks vian!

It's funny that you were thinking of that too - I was messing around with having the A be a torii gate, hadn't considered using the 山 in a similar way but I think it's definitely worth messing with!

[avaer]

Are there source files for that cool font and design?

[avaer]

This is coming up on a month now so maybe it's time for me to take over the job of finishing it.

[GaladWarder]

I have a PSD file for it, if that will work - https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-P0enrlDa-lN3cpni3hkpth3P526LkpY/view?usp=sharing

The font is called River Adventurer.

I can have it done pretty quickly though, the only reason it isn't yet is that last I heard I was supposed to pivot to wearables. If it's high priority, I can have it done and in SVG by the end of the week, possibly sooner.

Just let me know what you prefer!

[avaer]

Thanks!

I think wearables is ironically blocked on this in part, because the wearables should make sense in terms of the branding, rather than vice versa.

[GaladWarder]

Sure, no problem! I'll have updates here soon and I'll just shoot to have this shipped by end-of-week, then.

[avaer]

Ecco 2 Tides of Time (Genesis) This is actually quite dark in tone, but in a curious way. Might provide some interesting textures or ideas to draw from.

[avaer]

Dragon from Sekiro

[GaladWarder]

These are silhouettes only - I want to get a final silhouette nailed down then I will add color/textures. I think these should be getting closer to what you're looking for, is there one that jumps out to you that I can make tweaks to?

Also thanks for those screenshots/images - I think I'll pull color and texture ideas from Ecco, among other things.

[GaladWarder]

Any feedback on these one way or another? I'll need to do a final pass on texture and color today, so if I haven't heard anything, I'll just run with the one I feel is strongest.

Can always go back through if needed, but I'm shooting to have something final by the end of the week, so I'll have to run with something today.

[madjin]

personally think the W should be more emphasized rather than A, for sake of icons (see Z above: https://github.com/webaverse/app/issues/1283#issuecomment-855190700)

[avaer]

I don't think any letters need to be emphasized, but as a final step once everything is done perhaps the first letter could be storybooked.

https://www.google.com/search?q=story+book+font

[avaer]

This one is best but it's hurt by the enlarged torii and flat street (maybe I was wrong, or the lack of color and outlines makes this hard to picture in its final form).

I imagine the details being entangled with the letters themselves, growing into the letters somehow from the street. That would be really hard to show untextured.

And I also imagine there's more than one style of growth; perhaps vines plus something more digital or weird (that's why I added the Ecco references).

[avaer]

Also, that plant does seem on brand, but adding extra distinct objects in the letter area seems like it's muddying the design.

[GaladWarder]

Alright, I'll take the torii out and see about having the letters growing out of the Street, then!

[GaladWarder]

Alright lads, here's what I came up with. Tried to pull in the letters 'growing' from the street and mixing the organic with the tech/magic vibes, removed any accented letters, kept letter silhouettes clear of obstruction, and pulled in some of the Ecco textures while keeping to a loosely Fortnite style.

I think we're going to run into the issue of it needing to be simpler, but I'm honestly not sure how else to compress all that information to a simpler read; there may end up having to be a sacrifice of either some of the information or some of the clarity of the read.

I'll be able to do another round of revision before the Monday meeting (Monday my time is Sunday in the states), and am hoping we can find another time to voice chat either during the meeting or otherwise; there's a lot of info that's difficult to transmit over text.

Let me know what you think!

[GaladWarder]

Went through another round of revisions with Jin today, here's the sketches that resulted:

[GaladWarder]

I've also blocked in the vector shapes and base colors for a final, locking it to a grid and following design practices for spacing, etc...

I am going to finish up a render tomorrow - this part took longer than expected due to being extremely unfamiliar with Adobe Illustrator. I think the only good way to get a clean end result is to re-create it all in Illustrator, so I am going to try rendering directly in that program.

[madjin]

That looks awesome! I wonder what it'd look like if the W was more wood / handmade texture and if the bottom right bracket is metallic / dark? This logo is a different flavor than the heavily stylized Fortnite Street, but does strike many of the ideas implied at beginning of the thread.

[GaladWarder]

Of course! I should have clarified: this is a WIP - I am just blocking out shapes. I'll add textures and form tomorrow.

[avaer]

This getting close, into the realm of usable already. 👏

Both the street (rectangle) and W (square) styles of logos are good. I actually think two distinct but related logos might be needed, so we should continue with both.

Hopefully it's not too hard to change the text on the rectangle logo, because I'm not sure what text will be needed there yet (but working with "Webaverse" is fine for now).

Rectangle logo

I think we see the same thing about simplifying.

In theory I like like how the street bleeds into the letters, but that might be part of the problem in the legibility. What might be a better idea is to swap that layer for some other color/texture that is a counterpoint to the green. Perhaps some of the ideas from the Square logo (below) could be incorporated.

Also, it seems that it's the rock texture that adds the most complexity. Would any other textures, gradients, or outlines make the letters stand out more? The outlines in the previous glowing version seemed to do a good job focusing attention on the logotype.

Square logo

I really love the handrawn style of these, it's almost better than trying to flatten it if it can still be clear in favicon size (that's a good thing to check: resizing to popular favicon sizes).

I highlighted what I think are the right ingredients, though I don't know how many of them will work together:

I like the idea of the socket plugging in, and how it combines the nature and digital theme, but I think it's too realistic/mundane. It might be more thematically if instead of being a traditional socket the cables implied:

• charging your phone or VR headset (different cable type)
• jacking into the Matrix (spinal hook)
• the Steward from infinity train (tentacles)

But adding some sort of counterpoint to the nature theme is what I think works best. The flowers on the plant could also be Ecco balls instead, if instead of the digital component like cables we wanted something more abstract.

[avaer]

The closest one word descriptor I found is "solarpunk", which should generate a lot of other ingredients if needed.

https://aesthetics.fandom.com/wiki/Solarpunk https://www.reddit.com/r/solarpunk https://www.pcgamer.com/au/enough-cyberpunkits-solarpunks-time-to-shine/

[GaladWarder]

Alright - got some more iterations! Also, just for the record - thanks for the links to solarpunk; I think it's my favorite aesthetic I've seen.

First off, the rendered out square logo:

• Added wood/handmade texture
• made the bottom bracket dark/metallic
• pulled in some of the circled elements
• changed the plug type
• added counterpart to the natural textures with some hard metallic elements

Tried to keep the individual textures low-contrast so that it will still read when small. I think for favicon size, though, it would be best to just use the 'w'.

[GaladWarder]

Next, I tried a more 'hand-drawn' look to it as mentioned, following along with some of the aesthetics I've seen in crypto art. Just an experiment, let me know what you think:

This one will read extremely well small, and will be easy to convert to SVG. Loses some of the detail, though.

[GaladWarder]

Finally, I tried to hyper-simplify the rectangular logo as discussed. I think I kept most of the essence, but it reads much better now. Not sure if it's too simple or not, though:

[GaladWarder]

Also, I had an idea when re-rendering the square logo - if we were to keep the overall format, the 'W' with the brackets, it could just be re-rendered in different art styles to match the different seasons.

So for example, if there was a voxel season, it could be rendered out pixellated and voxel-y. If there was an artist collab season, it could be rendered in their style, and so-on.

By keeping the same silhouette, it would tie all the seasons together while still being a season-specific logo. It also would be fast to remake since it's just iterations off a base.

[madjin]

Can we see versions without the electric wire / socket?

[GaladWarder]

Totally - I'll render out one without the wire and one replacing it instead with Ecco balls on the tree

[GaladWarder]

With the Ecco balls instead of flowers:

[GaladWarder]

Without the wire:

[avaer]

For the square.

1) it's not hand drawn/digital enough now; I think that effect worked, especially the imperfections of coloring in the greenery

2) the digital UI aspect is lost The way I see it, the W is black and white, as if you typed it on a phone screen, and the glowing bars are a phone UI. This is implication I was going for: That analogy is kind of lost with new materials. Keeping the W and chevrons here as "digital UI style" I think is fine -- the whole point is to nod to being an app on a phone, which it might be. 3) it's overall too colorful and hard to replicate. There doesn't need to be much color; the low fi drawings and hard lines were trending in the right direction. 4) the top left cable seems better as a vine to me -- a vine hanging from a phone UI.

[avaer]

For the rectangle.

This is the best version and already nearly usable, just the letter texture is a little too complicated/high contrast. I think there is some combination of flatter colors, gradients, or similar, that would make the letters stand out more. Another idea is to make it a portal like swirl texture.

I also wanted to try those other things with this, like making the street not bleed into the letters but more the letters containing some other material (red digital lava?) inside the cracks, and maybe some branch structures like this: