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Quest for Infamy / Designing the IQ logo
« on: January 18, 2014, 07:12:38 AM »
So I wanted to talk about the IQ logo and how it was designed. We wanted something that combined 'Quest' with 'Point and Click' as that described us perfectly, but it had to be sleek too. With Infamous Adventures we had the moon and that was our thing, we didn't own the moon but we were a small amateur game company and thought it looked cool. With Infamous Quests we needed a new look, theme and vision - plus if we adopted the moon again under a commercial company I fear Dreamworks might sue us or something as they apparently own the moon - and boys that fish.
Originally I proposed that we went the Blizzard route and have a logo that was big, stylistic and in your face. Let's not be minimalistic I thought, let's have a big, cool logo. So this was the first draft of the IQ logo.
It had a style to it, but it wasn't sleek. And there wasn't that much to it that was really unique. Having a swirl as your logo has been overdone and nothing about it suggested we make point and click adventure games. We could be a company that makes Candy Quest Saga or something.
So I had to design a logo which was sleek but linked to point and click adventure games and quests. With Quest for Infamy it was difficult to picture something that could be sleek but be medieval and bloody. Steve Jobs and Jonathan Ive could even struggle coming up with an idea. Not comparing myself but just saying that sleek and medieval quests don't really go hand in hand.
Therefore, I googled a few images of medieval wares and found a shield. Online, not in real life but I wouldn't be surprised if my brother bought one of the internet or something. There was nothing special about this shield, the only inspiration it did for the logo was that it was a shield and gave me the idea to base it off of that. So I created the first initial draft of what we use today.
Not sure why I put the ribbon in, it was something that just stuck. But we all agreed that this was the route we wanted to pursue and were off to a good start. So we had nailed down the 'Quest' look with the shield, and obviously our name, but how do we show point and click adventure?
The first idea I had from this template was to turn the shield into a computer mouse with a wire that gradually faded. Unfortunately I don't have any drafts of that and as much as I tried to accomplish this design it just never came out right. It was hard to tell if it was a mouse and the sleekness of the logo kind of decreased as well. So instead of that I created an emblem on the shield, if we weren't going to use the mouse we could use a mouse pointer instead.
Tried to make it a bit sleeker too but decided against it as I thought too much was going on.
Now, I just want to put it on record that I'm not a professional graphic designer. I never studied it at school nor do it for a living so everything has been self taught. Despite designing the logo I wanted to put it in the hands of a professional to look over and make adjustments to it.
We sent the logo to Eriq Chang, graphic designer, lover of all adventure games and apart of the Hero-U team. We sent the logo to Eriq to see what he could do to make it stand out more and to clean it up a bit. This is what we got back and is the logo you all know and love today. Well, maybe not love but we like it.
Anyway, that was the exciting story behind the creation of the IQ logo. It won't be adapted into any films or TV dramas as far as I'm aware but it's always nice to know the background of these sorts of things whether it's a logo, a design choice or character's attire. That's all folks.
Originally I proposed that we went the Blizzard route and have a logo that was big, stylistic and in your face. Let's not be minimalistic I thought, let's have a big, cool logo. So this was the first draft of the IQ logo.
It had a style to it, but it wasn't sleek. And there wasn't that much to it that was really unique. Having a swirl as your logo has been overdone and nothing about it suggested we make point and click adventure games. We could be a company that makes Candy Quest Saga or something.
So I had to design a logo which was sleek but linked to point and click adventure games and quests. With Quest for Infamy it was difficult to picture something that could be sleek but be medieval and bloody. Steve Jobs and Jonathan Ive could even struggle coming up with an idea. Not comparing myself but just saying that sleek and medieval quests don't really go hand in hand.
Therefore, I googled a few images of medieval wares and found a shield. Online, not in real life but I wouldn't be surprised if my brother bought one of the internet or something. There was nothing special about this shield, the only inspiration it did for the logo was that it was a shield and gave me the idea to base it off of that. So I created the first initial draft of what we use today.
Not sure why I put the ribbon in, it was something that just stuck. But we all agreed that this was the route we wanted to pursue and were off to a good start. So we had nailed down the 'Quest' look with the shield, and obviously our name, but how do we show point and click adventure?
The first idea I had from this template was to turn the shield into a computer mouse with a wire that gradually faded. Unfortunately I don't have any drafts of that and as much as I tried to accomplish this design it just never came out right. It was hard to tell if it was a mouse and the sleekness of the logo kind of decreased as well. So instead of that I created an emblem on the shield, if we weren't going to use the mouse we could use a mouse pointer instead.
Tried to make it a bit sleeker too but decided against it as I thought too much was going on.
Now, I just want to put it on record that I'm not a professional graphic designer. I never studied it at school nor do it for a living so everything has been self taught. Despite designing the logo I wanted to put it in the hands of a professional to look over and make adjustments to it.
We sent the logo to Eriq Chang, graphic designer, lover of all adventure games and apart of the Hero-U team. We sent the logo to Eriq to see what he could do to make it stand out more and to clean it up a bit. This is what we got back and is the logo you all know and love today. Well, maybe not love but we like it.
Anyway, that was the exciting story behind the creation of the IQ logo. It won't be adapted into any films or TV dramas as far as I'm aware but it's always nice to know the background of these sorts of things whether it's a logo, a design choice or character's attire. That's all folks.
