HYPERBOREA » Retooled North Wind Logo

Ghul · 6/28/2014 12:56 pm

Since I started publishing under the North Wind Adventures brand, I've been using two logos. The first one was a simple hexagon with the company name in a narrow sans-serif font:

Simple, but a little boring.

Then came the "Sleepy Xathoqqua" image by Ian Baggley. The idea behind this logo rose up unintentionally. You see, at one point during the early development of the game, I was considering a wooden box with a laser engraved logo on the cover. I wanted to use Ian's image of the Xathoqqua eye found in the game, but without the smoky background, but Ian wanted to draw something all-new. I suggested something more tribal. By the time he finished it, I already knew I wasn't going to put the AS&SH game in a wooden box due to the exorbitant shipping costs involved. Now I had a second logo, and I didn't know what to do with it, so I started using them both on everything. Maybe not the brightest idea. Here is the Xathoqqua logo:

A very nice piece. However, in recent months I contemplated scrapping Baggley's Xathoqqua image, because despite its fine quality, I didn't feel it said anything about the brand. Ian felt it was a design that could be carried for years, representing a plethora of adventures, supplements, and so forth, but I never quite agreed, even though I liked the art. I was prepared to scrap it and start fresh. But then I came to my senses! Inspired by another (non-gaming) company's simple yet effective logo, today I spent about three hours designing the following presentation:

I think this captures exactly the sort of thing I was looking for. Vivid, distinctive art, clear and concise text, and a nice blend of contrast. Depending on the application, I could reverse the colors, too.

k2h2m3 · 6/28/2014 2:06 pm

I like it Jeff but I would be interested in seeing the colors reversed too.

Ghul · 6/28/2014 2:12 pm

Not really impressed with the inverted version, to be honest:

k2h2m3 · 6/28/2014 2:35 pm

Yeah I think I have to agree with your assesment.

Blackadder23 · 6/28/2014 3:27 pm

Please don't scrap Ian's stylized Bat-Toad! It is awesome. It also makes a different monster (sort of like an insect creature wearing a hat) if you turn it upside-down.

The new logo looks good.

Ghul · 6/28/2014 6:40 pm

Blackadder23 wrote:
Please don't scrap Ian's stylized Bat-Toad! It is awesome. It also makes a different monster (sort of like an insect creature wearing a hat) if you turn it upside-down.

The new logo looks good.

Thanks, BA23!

Chainsaw · 6/28/2014 7:45 pm

Agreed, looks good.

Ghul · 6/28/2014 7:55 pm

Chainsaw wrote:
Agreed, looks good.

Thanks, Chain!

mabon5127 · 6/28/2014 9:10 pm

Looks great!

Ghul · 6/29/2014 6:56 am

mabon5127 wrote:
Looks great!

Glad you like it, Morgan!

DMPrata · 6/29/2014 11:37 am

Jeff, what if you enclosed the Xathoqqua image in your original hexagon, like so?

Ghul · 6/29/2014 12:16 pm

That is a very interesting idea, DMP!

EDIT: The problem is still there from when I tried something similar a while ago. When you shrink it down to thumbnail size (because it's a logo that needs to be displayed sometimes quite small), the whole thing becomes too crowded, too busy, and the art (the focal point) loses some of its attraction.

Last edited by Ghul (6/29/2014 12:33 pm)

mabon5127 · 6/29/2014 6:19 pm

Ghul wrote:
That is a very interesting idea, DMP!

EDIT: The problem is still there from when I tried something similar a while ago. When you shrink it down to thumbnail size (because it's a logo that needs to be displayed sometimes quite small), the whole thing becomes too crowded, too busy, and the art (the focal point) loses some of its attraction.

It becomes a box in a box taking up a lot of space that shrinks the Tsathoqqua image. I do like including the hex but it makes the image too small. IMHO.

Morgan

Chainsaw · 6/29/2014 7:03 pm

What if you removed the box, then enlarged the hex such that the bottom line is the length of the old box, with the North Wind Adventures running beneath it. Then you can make the image larger inside the hex.

Ghul · 6/29/2014 7:41 pm

Chainsaw wrote:
What if you removed the box, then enlarged the hex such that the bottom line is the length of the old box, with the North Wind Adventures running beneath it. Then you can make the image larger inside the hex.

Ha! I tried that, too. I can't find the results, because it was something I'd messed with a long time ago. This will be hard to explain in words. See, the base of the hex demands a smaller sized font for the text below it, to keep it all proportionate, so you end up having to make a larger hex just to keep the text legible, and the whole thing looks awkward. You can stack the words "north", "wind", and "adventures" each on top of each other, in order to use a larger font size, but I really like the idea of "north wind" on one line and "adventures" below it, because they have the same number of characters. I'm not sure if I'm conveying any of this very well. I guess at the end of the day, what I'm saying here is that I tried a lot of different styles, and I never found anything that I liked enough to share until I made that rectangle design yesterday. I thought I had to scrap Xathoqqua, but then I realized that all I had to do was scrap the hexagon. It doesn't bother me, because I see a lot of other gaming companies using the shape for their logo designs. Thanks for the brainstorming, fellows!

Chainsaw · 6/29/2014 8:12 pm

Sounds like fun... NOT!

I like the box with the picture and words underneath just fine.

Ghul · 6/29/2014 8:17 pm

I'm not even sure what I said in the previous post, but I'm glad you concur.

joseph · 6/30/2014 8:23 am

The new logo looks good, and you have answered the question as to why each product had two logos. Well done Jeff!

Benoist · 6/30/2014 9:57 am

It looks good! A logo should be simple, straightforward, catch the attention and instinctively say something about the company. I think this logo accomplishes all of that.

Last edited by Benoist (6/30/2014 9:58 am)

Kirowan · 6/30/2014 11:57 am

Looks great.