The new Wesnoth logo and the Loyalist sigil

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Sgt. Groovy
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Re: The new Wesnoth logo and the Loyalist sigil

Post by Sgt. Groovy »

I feel the bottom shading on the center gold doesn't quite match the shading on the leather to the left.
Do you mean that the metal has lots of light while the leather is completely in shadow? The reflective properties of the materials are quite different, and the leather mostly only reflects the primary light source, while the metal reflects several light sources and also dark areas of the surroundings.
Each of the letters look to be a single object, except for the capital T. It seems to be a combination of three objects.
That's a good point.
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Re: The new Wesnoth logo and the Loyalist sigil

Post by jacobolus »

If you’re going to design a font or even just a logotype and you want it to work well, I really would recommend starting a discussion about it at typophile. You’ll get much better critique there than you will here (no offense to kitty et al – for real, the guys and gals over there know their stuff).

http://typophile.com/forum/1
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Re: The new Wesnoth logo and the Loyalist sigil

Post by Iris »

ancestral wins for posting the link first. :P
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Re: The new Wesnoth logo and the Loyalist sigil

Post by kitty »

Thank you for your detailed reply! Those are some quite interesting points!

About the style: Ok, so you want to draw a modern interpretation of blackletter. Meaning one with less detail and simpler shapes. To have such a clear statement and vision is great for this kind of endeavor! Of course my paint over (and it was a paint over - I really drew on top of your letters in order to preserve the rhythm and proportions) was more historically inspired. Most successful and interesting "contemporary" interpretations of blackletter I know rely heavily on grids and merge this 20th century principle with historical and calligraphic shapes (great reading on that and a lot of examples are to be found in the "heavy metal lovers" edition of the slanted magazine, unfortunately it is in german but the pictures can really speak for themselves). But that doesn't seem to be the way you want to go (or are you using some kind of modular system I'm overlooking?). Just to understand your way of working: Your approach is still calligraphic, just trying to create simpler forms but still drawing not constructing the letters?

What exactly is so strange about it? It probably could look more graceful, but hooks and loops are not uncommon endings for such swashes, and your own design contains two of them (though in different letters).
I apologize for phrasing things so broadly and unspecificly. With "strange" I tried to say that they seem to just hang down, they have no own flourish but are simply pulled down. And due to that they are too big and long to just be flags but not designed enough to be decorations in their own right.

That's quite true, and "a" is the one I have had most difficulties with, I'm still not sure whether I would prefer a single or double story one. (It actually used to match better with "o" in grayness, but not after I scaled down "for" and narrowed the "o" in "Wesnoth").
As far as I know a single story one is the typical blackletter choice. As I tried to show you can boost its grey value by changing the shape of the shoulder and having it curve slightly inwards.

I'm still sitting on the fence on this one myself. I originally chose the Carolingian form precisely because it's not what you would expect in this context. But then, the long crossbar of "tt" does look rather boring without the terminals. On the other hand, the Cyrillic and the Greek versions must use the wider, flat-topped shape, and I kind of like the idea of visual consistency across language version where possible.
Actually letters should first and foremost look like what you expect them to look like - that's how they work… ;) And while consistency with greek and cyrillic would be nice, I would argue that first finishing a coherent working set for one language and then derivate the others is easier than thinking of all of them at once.

That's not my invention, it's "r rotunda" and it was used quite intensively in medieval scripts, it was included in many blackletter typefaces, and for many, it was the only kind of "r" there was. It's true that it's not particularly familiar to modern readers, but I'm counting on the increased word recognition value of prepositions, which is even higher for fluent speakers (this is the English language version, after all). Ordinary "r" will also exist, that can be used in other language versions, if the context would not not help with recognition.
Your historic argumentation is interesting - I thought you wanted to create a simpler and more modern kind of blackletter... I know the shape and find it quite legible but I have a lot of doubt about that for less type-affine readers. Also the shape feels out of place in comparison with the rest, due to the little upper lobe your brush's angle creates a wider (and due to that blacker) stroke. I think basically my question is: What is the unbeknown form's benefit in contrast to the risk of confusion (or even misinterpretation?)

You know, critcising work people have presented is fine, but when making such flip assumptions about the amount of work they have or haven't done, you really risk coming off totally arrogant.

FYI, I've spent two days browsing through fonts, only to study their Ws for inspiration and to get inside that letter. I have drawn whole series of them, trying out very different ways of putting a W together, I have drawn a whole series of this particular letterform in order to refine it. […] I have put lot of work and thought into the "W" (probably about as much as all the other letters combined), so you are going to have to come up with something more precise than your "gut feeling" if you are going to convince me it's not good enough.
Oh my. It is great that you have invested that much effort in this letter! - But how on earth should I know that you did just that?! This (and one very slight variant) is the *only* kind of "W" you posted in this thread. If you try out a lot of things or want us to know that there was a lot of deliberation involved in arriving at this shape - why don't you post this process? I can not read thoughts (much less through the interwebz), if you expect somebody to have knowledge on your way of working/thinking/designing you need to tell about it not just expect that one can magically guess that you spent days browsing and drawing…

But on to the "W" itself ;)
There's probably lot you could criticise about the "W", like it looking like an upside down bra, but balance should be least of its issues. It consists of two rather similar shapes, arranged in symmetrical way, standing firmly on two upright legs. How on earth could it be more in balance?
Balance doesn't only happen horizontally. Yes, your shape is generally symmetrical. But only generally - because of your nib's angle all your letters are balancing on their left tips and you need to create counter weight. But in this case you added even more weight to the left with your really big hooked swash. Which creates the (visual) danger of the "W" toppling over to the left. Also the counters aren't symmetrical at all, one is round while the other is much more slender and pointy.

To me it seems as if you had a lot of ideas for the "W" and tried to put them all into one; there is the cathedral-like symmetry and the extremely high arch, the giant hook and finally the diagonals slightly reminiscent of celtic knotwork. And all of that doesn't come together in a unified design but stays a bit of this and a bit of that. I like some of those ideas a lot, but don't forget: additionally to those "ideas" you still have the basic principle of a calligraphically simplified blackletter…

I would be really, really curious to see the other shapes you explored!

Here's the "o":
Yay :D But generally: When working on glyphs don't just look at the singular shape of one glyph, always think of the font as a whole. The beautiful "o" on its own is nice - but does it work well together with the rest of the letters?

(I hope I answered all of your points… If I missed one it wasn't on purpose and only due to the sheer amount of text...)



And another vote for Typophile! Those guys are really, really great - nice and you'll find no other group with that kind and level of knowledge on the web!
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Re: The new Wesnoth logo and the Loyalist sigil

Post by Sgt. Groovy »

Just to understand your way of working: Your approach is still calligraphic, just trying to create simpler forms but still drawing not constructing the letters?
Yes and no. The basic look is supposed to be calligraphic, but technically I'm constructing the letters out of building blocks, much like geometric fonts. The most important parts are "o", which defines the bowls, and "i", which defines the vertical stems. I'm trying to reuse these as much as possible, but of course things have sometimes to be tweaked to get everything look good. Some letters have unique forms, but even then I'm trying to "hide" the basic elements in there somewhere (for example, in my new design for "s", the spine and the counters put together correspond to the counter of "o").
Wsample5.png
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There's a visual principle of pointed top and bottom for the letters, and curved, mostly convex sides. This is best manifested by "o", which looks a bit like a flame.
Yes, your shape is generally symmetrical. But only generally - because of your nib's angle all your letters are balancing on their left tips and you need to create counter weight. But in this case you added even more weight to the left with your really big hooked swash. Which creates the (visual) danger of the "W" toppling over to the left. Also the counters aren't symmetrical at all, one is round while the other is much more slender and pointy.
Now this is actually helpful, and now that I have learned to pay more attention to the counters myself, I pretty much agree. I'm still going to stick to the basic letterform, and try to iron out the flaws you pointed out. The swash definitely needs work, it's hogging all too much space from between the words.
What is the unbeknown form's benefit in contrast to the risk of confusion
One benefit is that it fits snugly around "o" and takes less vertical space. In particular, the vertical arm of the ordinary "r" would reach toward the swash of the "W" and eat up the negative space.

Here's a peek preview of the new version of the text. Still very sketchy and the capitals haven't really been touched yet.

And yes. I'm going to post these on the Typophile as well. Once I work up the courage. :)
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Re: The new Wesnoth logo and the Loyalist sigil

Post by Sgt. Groovy »

OK, a very quick and dirty, proof-of-concept edit of the "W". Making the counters more symmetric (area may be more critical factor than shape) and reducing the weight of the swash sure made a lot of difference. To make it properly, i will have to do it completely from scratch, this time designing the counters first and creating the rest of the glyph around them.
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Re: The new Wesnoth logo and the Loyalist sigil

Post by kitty »

Wow, that looks like a serious improvement! Those shapes look a lot more sophisticated!

But on to the crits after the praise ;) :

The whole lettering seems somewhat over that place now - kerning-wise as well as concerning the space the individual letters take up. Just squint and you'll notice that the grey-value is off. "a" and "o" are too wide, especially in the downscaled "for" the too wide "o" really shows. And I'm not sure about the new shape of the "a", the right half seems very much squished together and the tail is much wider than on other letters. The lower half of the "s" is very wide as well - the "h" has a mighty shoulder as well, but it doesn't show as bad because the shape is very closed. The "l-e" combination doesn't work at all, the kerning is off and the "e seems to fall of to the right, into the blank, you'll probably need to reduce the "l"s cute tail in order to make combinations with other letters possible. The "r" still looks like a tiny remainder of something glued to the "o", perhaps scale up the upper lobe a tad and reduce the overall angle? The "n" is optically still leaning to the left. The "e-s-n" is terribly tight. The single "t" looks like it is slouching, I know the stem really is straight, but the angled top creates this unfortunate illusion.

If you've got too much time on your hands you could create a slightly bolder weight in order to use it for the downscaled preposition. If you only scale it down things get bit thin there.

And finally the "W" - definitely an improvement! The right diagonal of the first "V" (I hope you know what I mean…) could get a bit slimmed down in order to fit better with the lower case letters. The left diagonal of the first "V" is of uneven width, it bulges where the left diagonal of the second "V" connects. The new hooked swash is already much lighter, which really helps - did you try to position it lower than the apices?
The "B" will receive a similar treatment I guess?
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Re: The new Wesnoth logo and the Loyalist sigil

Post by Sgt. Groovy »

The whole lettering seems somewhat over that place now - kerning-wise as well as concerning the space the individual letters take up. Just squint and you'll notice that the grey-value is off.
Actually, I've been painfully aware of this the whole time. The problem is, that since the text is going to be superimposed on a symmetric element, it also must have a symmetric balance as a whole. The best layout for the text is like the one in the original logo, with "The" and "for" centered, and "Battle" and "Wesnoth" balanced on both sides, and I'm trying to keep that for the new logo as well. Unfortunately, it means that as a trade-off the grayness values of the words aren't going to be exactly uniform (this is also apparent in the old logo, where "Wesnoth" is quite squeezed). On the other hand, the text isn't going to be black-on-white in the final product, which I hope will alleviate the grayness difference somewhat.
If you've got too much time on your hands you could create a slightly bolder weight in order to use it for the downscaled preposition. If you only scale it down things get bit thin there.
One of those things that are totally obvious, but only after someone says it out loud. Yes, it's a great idea, and no, it's not too much work. The letters needed for prepositions and articles are going to be a subset, and I can make them on-demand basis.

Here's some new tweaks, with a blurred version to make grayness visible (works better than eye squint :wink: ):
rect4856.png
Here's the things I've changed:
  • Changed "a" into a two-story version. It's rather wide, but blacker than the previous one (it still has lot of counter-space, but because it's split, it doesn't come off as a huge gaping hole).
  • Narrowed down "o" and loosened the spacing between other letters to make up for the difference.
  • Tweaked the balance of "n" a little bit.
  • Widened "B" to the right and tightened spacing in "attle".
  • Made the upper counter in "s" larger to balace it with the lower one and to make the whole letter whiter.
  • de-slouched the "t" top.
Both capitals are going to get a total redesign from scratch (similar look, but better), so it's no use nitpicking on them at this point. I'm going to make "B" as wide as I can get away with, in order to make "Battle" as wide as possible and to create a heavy counterweight to balance the longer word on the other side. That way I hope I'm able to open up the spacing in "Wesnoth" even more.
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Re: The new Wesnoth logo and the Loyalist sigil

Post by Sgt. Groovy »

Another tweak, this time with a different letterform for "s". The letter is blacker, but the negative space around it is more continuous. The shape itself is less interesting, but a simpler one might work better in this context.
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Re: The new Wesnoth logo and the Loyalist sigil

Post by Sapient »

Hmm... I preferred the more different 'S'

I found this related tutorial: link
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Re: The new Wesnoth logo and the Loyalist sigil

Post by ancestral »

Sgt. Groovy, it'd be great to get either a vectorized version or a larger version of the sigil, when you have time, even if it's not entirely finished or perfect.
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Re: The new Wesnoth logo and the Loyalist sigil

Post by Sgt. Groovy »

BRAAIINNSSS... Thread resurrection complete!

I was recently informed that my design for the new logo has been committed. I've been getting asked for the source files for various other reasons, so here are a high-definition PNG (notice to vultraz: this is slightly different from the one I sent you in PM ) and the original SVG files. If you need a saller bitmap version, you should get it by scaling down the large one (the complex texture of the leather doesn' look so good when rendering straight from vector in low resolution). If you need even larger version, you can render it from the SVG.

Important notice about the SVG file: I've used some rather complex filters that are poorly implemented in some SVG libraries, so it might look rather different in some programs that can import SVG. Of the ones I've tried so far, only Inkscape and Batik can render it properly.

As for the text overlay part, I can start working on it again, but unfortunately I don't have the time for designing the font from scratch, like I was doing before. So an already existing font would have to be used, but when done in vector, for translated versions, only the text would have to typed in and posibly readjusted and kerned, the visual effect would be applied automatically. All the translations could be stored in a single source file, with a small change needed to render different versions.
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Re: The new Wesnoth logo and the Loyalist sigil

Post by vultraz »

I've committed the updated 1920 render as well as the SVG to the resources repository. Since the difference between the two PNGs (this one and the one you PM-ed me) seems minimal enough, I don't think I need to re-render the smaller logo updates I've already committed to the master repo.

Once again, big thanks for working on this. :)
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Re: The new Wesnoth logo and the Loyalist sigil

Post by Sgt. Groovy »

Alright, I put something together for the text part. Visually, it follows the old one, having a ^ shaped raised metal effect. The inset shows it in context of the game start screen. The problem with this effect is that it makes the text blend with the background (the same issue is present with the old one). A flat shape would stand out better, though it would look more boring in other contexts.

The font I used is "Typographer Rotunda." It doesn't need to be this, but probably something similar, medieval-looking, yet simple and easy to read. If someone has good suggestions, I'd be very grateful. The font must be released under a "free" license, "free for personal use" doesn't cut it. The more glyphs it has for different languages, the better. Narrow W and o are a plus, as are wide B and t, as they help to balance "Battle" with "Wesnoth".
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Re: The new Wesnoth logo and the Loyalist sigil

Post by LordBob »

Hey Groovy, it's nice to see you working on the logo once again. Looks like the old guard is coming back, now all we're missing is a friendly wave from TSI and Kitty. :D

On the choice of a font, I won't be too picky. Hell, if this one has a suitable license let's roll with it. If not I can try and help find an appropriate one, but typography definitely isn't my area of expertise so I would rather leave that to someone more competent.

As for the effect, I would be curious to further explore some possibilities you tried way back in the early days of this project.
Option 1
Option 2

Option 1 is my favorite and probably the one that fits best thanks to the cast shadow. I also like its raised border, which could mimic the existing ^ effect - no idea if that would actually look good, but it's worth a try I think.
Option 2 has this nice outer border in red that adds a bit of decoration.
The red tone in either is maybe not the color that fits best, so I would make sure that it can easily be modified for further experimentation.
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