[ENnies] Logo Design

[Denise]

Hey everyone!

A couple of weeks ago I started up a little contest asking for submissions for the ENnies logo, and I'm collecting opinions on the submissions.  I'm going to have to pick the winner over the course of the weekend, and am looking for outside eyes to evaluate them.  So here they are.  Some are concept sketches, others more developed.  I'm interested in hearing opinions about them.  We may end up combining elements from different designs, or switching colours, fonts, etc.

http://ennieawards.com/logos.pdf

Please let me know what you think!

[Kevin Allen Jr]

Hey Denise,

I'm a graphic designer working in NYC/NJ. I say that not to seem like an authority or to weigh my opinion, only that i do a lot of this and see a lot of this. Of course this is all opinion, and should be treated as such.

I have to honestly say, none of these really grabs me. They all lack the gloss of professionalism or the slickness of high production value. They look sort of MS-paint-y. I'll give a play by play

1. The star AND the swoosh are a little much, either one would be stronger, but both make the image a bit busy. The colors are nice and contrasty (thats good) and the cup is a nice drawing. I personnaly don't like the font (it's too D&D in middle school, and i don't think that is indicative of the entire scope of gaming the ennies represents), and solids are always stronger than gradients. The outlining on the font works well here, and is a good weight. But what is the ennies? Its clearly a contest (that cup is obviously a trophy), but for what? Excellence in dentistry, Best lawncare product of the year? The logo doesn't let me in on the secret, and the logo is the face of the company.

2. A bit childish. When I think gaming i think "fun social hobby." When i think dragons "geeks love 'um." Which of those is more apropos of the Ennies? Also this won't look good reduced (like on a business card) or enlarged (like on a convention sign), at best it will look poorly rendered and at worst it'll look like some red blobs with lines growing out of them.

3. It took me a long time to figure out why 4 giant mushrooms growing out of the earth was submitted. Then i realized that they were dragon claws. I realize this is probably a concept sketch and not a finnished comp, but even if this looked like what it was supposed to look like it would suffer from the same problems # 2 does.

4. This one is the best. It's neatly rendered. Good color. I understand that gaming or games are involved, but i'm not beaten over the head with middle-school D&D symbology. The font is solid and shows up clearly. Really very nice. BY FAR the best in the bunch. Also, its not a circular blob (its sort of L shaped) and thats really good, it sets it apart from other logos.

5. Where is the color? Is that a globe? This might work better without the gridlines and in full color. I like the idea a lot but this sketch doesn't get it across. Send it back to the drawing board and you could get something very good here (potentially the win).

6. Who is this little hammer guy? I know he's dressed in "garb" but this doesn't say gaming at all, it says "wanted: chiropractors." I know we're intersted in mythology, but this is a big streach. The idea just isn't there and this comp suffers all the aesthetic problems that #2 and #3 do.

7. This is just 5 but not as easy to see. We want more clarity from this, not less.

8. Very neat and clean. good lines, good renderings. Black and red is a little stand-offish. I think it needs less grey and more Black and red to look "bad ass." I don't know if "bad ass" is what the ennies want, but that is what those colors will deliver. All this grey and so little red makes it look like a printer error. Adjust the color and this could be as strong as #4.

9.(and the rest). These look like the ideas for what would evolve into #4. The reduced images show you just how poor the typography is (you cant read them at all). the colors are too flat here. The d12 is better than the d6 but only because the d6 is too sharp looking and it's perspective is all wrong (the rounded d6's shown above, like in #8, are waaaaaay better). I do REALLY like the checkerboard shoulders on the shirts, and would really love to see that on some merch (even though it's very out of place and doesn't have any relationship to the rest of the design).

I know this is a lot of opinion, and that isn't what the forge is about, but i hope i've offered some concrete advise or at least helped your desicion. Also, i hope this doesn't come off as snarky or mean-spirited, contests like this are important to both the design and gaming community and we need more of them. thanks for asking for feedback Denise.

[Andrew Morris]

Kevin's already covered most of the points I would have made, but far more clearly, thoroughly, and tactfully.

I'd rate #4 as "pretty good," and #8 as "has potential." The rest I'd just get rid of, and then maybe go for another round of submissions, in case #4 or #8 don't work when they're tinkered with and finalized.

[Eero Tuovinen]

Do you actually give out a bowl? Because if you don't, then that makes #1 and #4 pretty stupid ideas in the first place. Even if you actually have a bowl, putting it in the logo is rather simplistic, in my opinion. A bowl is not very pretty when it comes to logos. What's worse, it scales rather awfully, making the logo difficult to apply in different media. This is especially the case as a bowl could also be generic illustration, and there is no meaningful way of stripping it away, it being the main element here. But perhaps the worst problem is that if you have a bowl in your logo, you can't very well put the logo on a bowl, or you can't illustrate anything with a bowl if you're going to have the logo there as well, and you can't even have a bowl in the same room without drawing the eye to the sameness/difference between the bowl from the logo and the other bowl. So whether you have a bowl or not, you're pretty much screwed with this one.

The Earth-bags in #5 and #7 are funny, but not pertinent. #8 is dynamic, but also confusing, badly colored and not descriptive of the Ennies core message. The Earth-variants in #2, #3 and #6 are all dependent on descriptive miniature figures, and thus are not suitable for an official main logo.

#9-11 have the most potential as a generic-use logo. It's dynamic (builds well for animation, for example), easily variable and uses earth and dice to symbolize globality and gamerness, two core messages. It's just reduced all wrong: the reduced form should strip Earth and the name, leaving only the die, the flash and the year, if applicable. Perhaps reposition the name if necessary for the context. But definitely only use the full regalia in close-up media or banner size, any merchandise should stick to the die and the falling star, which become a distinctive, almost heraldic combination. It would also be ideal if the full form had a bit more indication that the blue blob is Earth, but that's something to be figured out later. The main point, however, being that that's the only version that really has a distinctive graphical geometry usable in all sizes and interlocking well in different color schemes and situations. I recommend, with the proviso that "gaming" and "globality" actually are the core messages you want to transmit; if not, the logo falls flat on its face.

That said, I agree that you should get more drafts. Perhaps keep #11 for later comparison and look around for more options. I know a couple of graphic designers who might be interested if there was plenty of time to fit this on their schedule, for example. Choosing a logo is not something you should hurry, so consider postponing the choice even until after this year's Gencon. Or perhaps make revealing your choice a part of the program there?

[Denise]

Wow, those are some great comments! 

The choice of font is pretty much locked in stone since it's part of the EN brand.  As the ENnies moves further away from EN World (no longer a d20 award, judges and voters from around the world, etc), we want to keep at least some connection with it, hence the Morpheus font.

Oh yeah, and the checkered shoulders on the Ts were the artist's response to my suggestion of attempting to implicate Indianapolis.

I wanted something to represent the globality of the awards as well as something gaming related, and it looks as though we've settled on a (fixed up) version of #10.  We're currently playing with colours and tweaking the design a bit, but I think we're going to go for #10 (designed by Claudio Pozas).

[iago]

I know I'm speaking up late, but if you're going for #10, I'd consider using a (color-adjusted) version of the d6 from #8 -- the angle and the three-dimensionality of that one is a lot more visually interesting than the one in #10.