Care to weigh in on potential logo concepts? Vote here! (Round 3)

[x4000]

Round 3!

We're undergoing a process to choose a logo for Skyward Collapse.  Here are our current two top picks, plus three other designs that are not as finished but might have potential with revision: http://99designs.com/logo-design/vote-o8plsy

We'd be interested in hearing what most sparks your interest!

[LaughingThesaurus]

227 gets my top vote on this one.

[eRe4s3r]

Yep, 227 came out of nowhere.. with some soft (precise) glow in the same color as the gradient of the Icon around the Icon it would look extremely slick. Not much more to say ,)  I guess one could still argue whether CollapsE should be larger than Skyward.. but if the game's name is Skyward Collapse, I guess there is no way around odd iconography..  both words have same natural length (even pixel perfect length in most fonts..) so it will always be hard to put that anywhere without it looking odd ;p

Although I have no idea what you asked the artists to do so... well whatever, 227 is my fav

[Aquohn]

217 pales in comparison now, and 229 is just bleh. 230 looks Valley-esque, if you're looking for that sort of thing, and is decidedly better than the somewhat-similar 226. 227 is pretty nice though.

[x4000]

227 came in out of the blue from a new designer this morning, yeah.  There are many things I love about it, but I don't think it's quite usable in its current state.  I wanted to see the overall reaction to this early form of it, and obviously that's polling extremely well.  This was the feedback I left on it for the designer:

This is extremely well-designed, let me first say. I love the detailing you have in all the different parts of the background floating island -- this is the best I've seen yet by far when it comes to that concept of a floating island profile.

That said, there are a few things holding this back from five stars:

1. The word I'd prefer to emphasize is "skyward" rather than "collapse."

2. When this is reduced to the size of the steam capsules (120x45 px at its smallest), the text of skyward in particular becomes illegible. It needs to be super clear for both words at that scale.

3. The way it sticks up with the castle and down with the hanging rock creates a wonderful design, it's true. I absolutely adore that. However, when used at that small scale I think that's a bit part of the problem here in terms of causing the text to shrink even further and become more illegible. Given that the 120x45 px space is our primary marketing tool on the biggest games store in the Internet, that poses a really big issue for us.

4. The font itself I'm not in love with, either. It's strikes me more as casino/western rather than fantasy/mythology.

5. And lastly, the colors are fairly dark on both the green and golds. I'd like something a bit brighter and more saturated, that looks friendlier.

Other thoughts:

I'm reluctant for you to just chop off the castle or something, because that's so key to the excellent design you have here. And that would still leave the part of the island that hangs down. I am wondering instead about two potential options:

a) Showing this island, scaled-down, to the left of the text in some fashion. This has the drawback of potentially making it feel less unified, though, and also of making it wider and thus potentially not reducing well to 120x45 because of width rather than height.

b) Possibly shifting the text to no longer be inset, but instead to be overlaid more. That has the drawback of potentially being more messy, and of causing the cool emblem plate to simply be obscured anyhow.

So I'm not quite sure where to go from here, but that's why I'm not a designer! Those are the challenges I see for the design, so hopefully that sparks something for you.

[tigersfan]

My problem with 227 is that it looks, (to me, anyway) like a logo for a sports team. This is made worse by the way that the tile wraps around the words, with the bottom of the tile being reminiscent of the bottom of the state of North Carolina.

[eRe4s3r]

That's a very good point there... but with some shape and typographic changes it could look neat ,)  To me 217 presents the best case for Steam usage since it's 100% readable... but the Steam logo will need a LOT more work than just cropping the size to fit.. Steam logos have odd shapes and need to be properly designed from scratch...  just putting your game logo there is going to look very odd

[x4000]

Well, in terms of the capsule images (the tiny things in the steam listings), the logo is the main thing there.  And usually it's pretty much cropped to fit.  Steam's guidelines specifically advise against changing the logos and so on, because it harms recognizeability.  Just look at how bad the Bioshock Infinite logo looks in the Steam listings, but at least it's recognizeable.

The LARGER steam banners and headers and so forth are what require all that extra design, as you were saying.

Anyhow, I've passed on a bunch of feedback to all the top designs in here, and we'll see what comes of that.  Nothing is quite perfect yet, although the successors to #230 have improved immensely and I really like how that turned out.

[mrhanman]

#227 is to me the most well designed and thoughtful logo so far.  I understand the critiques aimed at it, and I hope that the artist is able to address them while keeping the spirit and style he already established.

#217 is my second favorite this round.

#226 isn't bad, but it seems a little too plain for my tastes.

The other two just seem very forgettable.  Maybe even a little absurd.

[x4000]

230 and 229 have already seen some major improvements by their designers, which I will share in the next poll.  229 still needs much more work before it's ready for the next poll, though.

The three top ones in the poll (the others beyond 230 and 229) all have voluminous feedback to their designers, and I expect I'll hear back from them with new designs later in the day.  Once I have those is when I'll do the next poll.

I personally think that the new version of 230 (242, not shown yet) is extremely strong.  But we'll see what everyone else thinks, and what the revisions to the other four wind up looking like in the end.

[eRe4s3r]

To be honest I find this way of picking a logo (By committee) kinda funny ;P Can you reveal what the price money for the.. ehm, "choosen winner" is? I never heard of this site before.. so I am curious is all ;p

[tigersfan]

Just so we're clear, we really appreciate everyone's feedback, but, you aren't voting for the winner directly. Chris and I (but mostly Chris) are taking your votes into consideration for the decision, but, ultimately, Chris is choosing the winner.

[Kahuna]

If 230 was (lime?) green I'd vote for it. I don't like the colors. 227 gets my vote now.

[x4000]

Yep, this is definitely not a choice by committee at all.  I'm making the final call, and that may be different from what the majority thinks here (bear in mind the majority here isn't even necessarily the majority everywhere).  That said, having multiple sets of eyes looking at stuff is extremely valuable, and people here keep bringing up all sorts of points I'd not thought of.  So it's been immensely valuable in helping to fix this up.

To see the prize about, I believe you can look here to see that: https://99designs.com/logo-design/contests/logo-skyward-collapse-pc-game-207944  I forget exactly what the prize is, because 99designs themselves takes a cut.  What I see on my screen is the cost to me, but on the public screens there I think it shows the prize amount.

[mrhanman]

This is a really cool site that I'd never heard of before.  I lack the talent to produce any work or to have anything designed, but it's still impressive, anyway.

Nice Exodus logo choice, by the way.