Suijin Logo

The next logo I completed from sketches was 'Suijin Games'.

Here is the first version I made.

With this version I stuck quite closely to the original shape and design. I stuck mainly to blue, being a watery colour, and made some background shapes in 'silver' and turquoise, which are auxiliary colours. I liked the wave at the end of the character's 'tail' so much that I made the separate extra waves to try and bring it out a little. I also used a contrast of inner and drop shadows to create a contrast of embos and engraving. I added a similar effect to the font, which I really liked.
The font I used was Endor from www.fantasyfonts.com.

Overall I think the logo worked out alright, and would definitely say I preferred it over the Agrona logo. But with so much attention on the wave of the tail, I wanted to try making a simpler logo with just the wave as an image. Here is the first alternate I made.

I took out the bottom-most layer with the turquoise-black wave shadow and changed the font (mainly). The new font is called Fairydust, also from www.fantasyfonts.com. I also made an effort to separate out the two words of the logo. I really like the effect made by making the first word dark and the second light, with the wave as a background. I felt that this somehow worked a lot better than the first version, but I felt like there was a little something missing and I could make it even better, so I added a few tweaks. Below is what I came up with.

I was happiest with this version. I didn't change the font this time, but I removed the 'tails' of the waves with a layer mask and added the dark blue and white 'swivel' underlining the word 'Suijin'. I feel that this made the overall image more compact and focused, with just the right amount of interest on both words.

Agrona Logo

The first logo that I made into a 'final version' was the 'Agrona Shield'.

Here is the final result.

I made the 'shield' diamond below the cross green and the cross yellow and orange to make it look a bit golden or bronze. These two colours complemented each other as well as communicated a Celtic theme. I used a gradient of purple for the detail to make them relief, and for extra effect I gate the 'cross-jewels' an inner glow. For the font I chose the Aniron font, which I downloaded from www.fantasyfonts.com.

Overall I am happy with how it looks, but not super excited about it. While the logo would definitely look good on screen, am unsure as to how the small detail would affect the overall look if it was shrunken to 100x100 px for example, or smaller. If used as a logo, it might be necessary to make a plainer version for use in small print.

I had no other ideas as to what to do with this, so I didn't make other versions.

Quick Idea

Based on the initial phoenix logo sketch which I uploaded, and while watching a program online I had a third idea with regard to a company name and the use of the logo.

 

The idea of the name would be Egyptian God Phoenix. This would still communicate the theme of the company's aims, which are elegance and mythology/fantasy.

 

The shape below would still be used, but instead of reds I would use a gold gradient. This would still communicate the idea of fire but also the colour of sand.

 

Concept Logos

These are the concept sketches that I made by hand which I will use from here on out to create the logos. They will act as the base for the logos and subsequent forms.

Fenix

This was the idea for the phoenix logo which would be combined with the text of the company name. Below is a sketch of the feather for the second version idea, where instead of the company name the feather is superimposed on the phoenix instead.

Mer

The Mer logo idea was drawn in the same style as Suijin and Sunanoo but with more of an emphasis on resembling submarine life or creatures.

Suijin

Suijin and Mer are somewhat similar, but with Suijin I tried to place more focus on implying the idea of the sea rather than a creature living in the sea (which was more of the approach with Mer). This is represented in the image as the tall standing hair (meant to imply wind or rising currents) and the 'tail' ending in three clouds meant to imply waves and sea foam.

Sunanoo

Sunanoo followed along the same style as Mer and Suijin but with the flowing motion I tried to make her imply wind and hence storms more than water.

Agrona

In the shield drawn with a cross I tried to a mixture of shapes, crosses, diamonds and circles to give a medieval feel.

Valkyria

The idea with the helmet was to try and make an image which looked like it had a lot of fine detail yet still remained quite basic. The sharp edges ended up giving the image a very metallic look.

Inspiration Images for Logo

These images have been searched for with Google. These images are used for inspirational purposes only and the poster does not claim any rights for these images.
All rights to the original images belong to their respective owners.

More Logo Ideas

To begin my idea search, I did a search for fantasy fonts. I came upon www.fantasyfonts.com from where I found the following ideas for fonts.

These were some of the fonts I found which I felt could be applicable to the logo. I chose a few to list as the final choice will largely depend on the final logo choice.

Next I researched what Avalon was. According to dictionary definition(http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/avalon), it is:

"An island, represented as an earthly paradise in the western seas, to which King Arthur and other heroes were carried at death."

Further research found that it has also been thought of as a place of healing and where the legendary swords Caliburn and Excalibur were forged.

Based on this new information, I came up with further logo ideas to play off of this imagery.


Name ideas:

Suijin Games
Reasoning: 'Suijin' is a Japanese Shinto water god. This is another version of the 'Mer' idea, with a similar background reasoning. Also, I thought it would be related through the fact that Avalon is an island.

Susanoo
Reasoning: Similar to that of 'Suijin Games' and 'Mer'. Susanoo is the Japanese god of summer storms.

Agrona
Reasoning: The name of the Brythonic Goddess of war (http://www.behindthename.com/names/usage/celtic-mythology). This was as a subject connection to the game, as it will be a fighting game.

Valkyria Games
Reasoning: In Norse mythology, the Valkyries were battle maidens of Odin who escorted valiantly fallen heroes to Valhalla, the Asgardian Hall of Heroes. This would be a similar connection as with the 'Agrona' name.

Logo ideas:

(For the name: Suijin Games)
One idea is to have waves close to the name, which might look like a person (as 'sui' is Japanese for water and 'jin' is Japanese for a person).

(For the name: Susanoo)
The first concept is to have something similar to the 'Suijin Games' logo idea, but these 'waves' would not only have watery blues and such, but also greys and perhaps some red to communicate the chaos and power of storms.

(For the name: Agrona)

The first idea was to have a simplified Celtic cross next to the name.

Another idea is to have a simple shield with a Celtic cross image on it, behind the letters of the name.

(For the name: Valkyria Games)
One idea was to have the profile shape of a helmet with three prominent feathers next to the name. This would represent a Valkyrie's helmet.

An alternate version of this could be the helmet silhouette with only the letters VG next to it.

Example sketches to follow...

Raster vs Vector Images

Last week we went over in class the difference between raster and vector images, and what each is used for.

Raster images, also known as bitmap, are made up of many tiny pixels.These pixels can be any colour or shade. Pixels can be stretched, but this distorts the image. Raster images are typically used when designing for screen.Adobe Photoshop is made primarily to manipulate raster images. JPEG, Bitmap and Gif are all examples of image file types which are raster images.

The density of pixels is referred to as dots per inch. The higher the ratio of pixels within an inch, the better the quality of the raster image. However, high quality images also take up more memory. Raster images can be shrunk and quality will stay good. Quality will suffer if raster images are increased in size. When quality matters, its better to start off with larger than smaller images.

As an example, here is a raster image of a duckling.

Below is the result when the image has been shrunken, stretched again and again multiple times in the Paint program.

As can be seen the quality reduces each time until the image is all but destroyed by the process.

Vector images are created through paths connecting points. Mathematical equations tell the computer how the dots are connected and these describe the image. Vector images do not lose quality when stretched or changed. However, fewer colours to work with. Typically used in print as they can be blown up to huge sizes. CGM (computer graphics metafile) and SVG (scalable vector graphics) are examples of vector file types.

Visual example of vector versus raster:

 

Vector images are designed with points and paths. Bitmap images are made with a series of dots.

Vector images can be better for simple images like this, especially if after creation it must be printed to huge size.

In other uses, like photographs, raster images are better. This is because the level of detail possible is higher.