The new Wesnoth logo and the Loyalist sigil

[Atz]

I like the second one most, both the font and the effect.

As far as fonts go, the first and third are simply too squiggly and illegible. "Battle for DDesnoth?" "DBesnoth?" It's kind of problematic that the W, in particular, is the least legible character when it also starts the only non-English word in the logo. It also took me a moment to process it the first time I saw it, just because the text was difficult to read, which isn't good in a logo. The second is acceptable, but it might be worth looking at something plainer.

I really like the second effect, however. I think the red makes it stand out nicely from the shield, and contrary to what others have said about it looking like a book, I think the gold border and red enamel matches the brass and blue on the shield. I find the text in the metallic one doesn't stand out enough, while the faded book look in the final one doesn't really match the style of the shield.

[bigkahuna]

^ Agrees with the above post. I think the shadowing, texture, and overall stand-outness really matches with the shield and the overall style that all the art developers have been talking about.

The first one doesn't really match, it is between a silver color and a metallic, neither of which match the present coat of arms.

The third one looks really flat, and too bright. It doesn't really stick out of the main menu picture either (shading, lighting, etc.) I hope this helped! [/non_important_person_comment]

[lostnumber]

I like the second one most, both the font and the effect.

As far as fonts go, the first and third are simply too squiggly and illegible. "Battle for DDesnoth?" "DBesnoth?" It's kind of problematic that the W, in particular, is the least legible character when it also starts the only non-English word in the logo. It also took me a moment to process it the first time I saw it, just because the text was difficult to read, which isn't good in a logo. The second is acceptable, but it might be worth looking at something plainer.

I really like the second effect, however. I think the red makes it stand out nicely from the shield, and contrary to what others have said about it looking like a book, I think the gold border and red enamel matches the brass and blue on the shield. I find the text in the metallic one doesn't stand out enough, while the faded book look in the final one doesn't really match the style of the shield.

I re-read the third one with your comments in mind and I realized that if I didnt already know what it was saying I would have no idea what that letter was. I also like the 2nd one best both in terms of effect and the font.

However one thing to consider is that if the middle one has the best effect (which all of us seem to agree on) that might skew our perceptions of the font, when they are clearly independent things. To test this you could setup each of the three fonts with each of the three effects. Or maybe that'd be more effort then its worth, I dont know

[Sgt. Groovy]

As I already stated in the thread in the Art Dev Form, I do not belief in choosing a font based on taste, again I would like to recommend to first think about the things we want to achieve visually with it and the things that are aesthetically and technically required first…

You keep saying that, but I first suggested the font change a year and a half ago, and that discussion still hasn't materialised. The best you have come up with is putting a list of words together that should describe the desired impact, but that would be no way less subjective than just picking up something enough of us like (and we still don't even have that word list ).

And to me gold/metal-effect letters make visually much, much more sense on top of a massive shield than pseudo-book lettering.
...
Altogether, though, I'm slowly getting convinced that the existing metallic style is what works best with a solid, realistic swords & shield. Styles like #2 and #3 are beautiful on their own, but they say "book" to me and would be better suited with an illumination-like picture behind.

I haven't come up with the alternatives on a whim. I have both objections to the old look and and reasons for a "book" style:

1. • On of the reasons for the whole project was to have a logo that would be usable in fairly large sizes as well. The current effect, with a simple lighting pattern of light vs. shadow quickly loses its metallic feel when magnified. It would need more complex reflection pattern (as my new version has), which in turn makes it look more "noisy" and less legible against the noisy map background.
   • The raised metal text is highly common, and while it's a very safe choice, it's also very unoriginal and dull.
2. • The text is not only superimposed on the shield and swords, but on the map as well. A "book" style would bind thematically to both of these backgrounds (in a medieval society, cartography is an important academic and scientific field). I've even played with the idea that the text would not be on top of the shield, but would look like it was written directly on the map. But then we would need a whole another version different contexts.
   • In a narrow context the metallic text may suit well with a metallic shield, but the logo should tell about the game in more depth. What I see as a Grand Narrative in the game world history is the kingdom of Wesnoth as a "force of civilisation," struggling for its existence in a mostly hostile environment. Medieval world was more than just knights in shining armours, it was also monks scribbling illustrated manuscripts, and I think that bringing that up by the literary connotations of a book-style text is not a bad thing.

[LordBob]

In a narrow context the metallic text may suit well with a metallic shield, but the logo should tell about the game in more depth. What I see as a Grand Narrative in the game world history is the kingdom of Wesnoth as a "force of civilisation," struggling for its existence in a mostly hostile environment. Medieval world was more than just knights in shining armours, it was also monks scribbling illustrated manuscripts, and I think that bringing that up by the literary connotations of a book-style text is not a bad thing.

Do not mistake me : I do get your point. However, because most if not any book-style text will hardly match the current rendering of the swords and shield, I'm seriously considering a book-style sword and shield that would match whichever book-style text we come up with

[Sgt. Groovy]

Sounds good, except for the part where I'd have to start from scratch with the shield-and-swords, only to get it to match the text.

Seriously, though, I've already considered to monochrome "letterhead" version to be fairly detailed, and rendered with hatched shading, woodcut like (see this for reference). With this style, both the text and the shield could be made to look like they were directly printed on the map (right now it either looks like the shield is the size of a cigarette box or the map is the size of a tennis court). We could use the photorealistic version in other contexts, like the black splash screen, with the same font and composition, but with different letter style.

On the other hand, the "book" style (metal+enamel) could only be applied to the capitals, while the other parts would be rendered as plain metal letters of compatible style. This would get us the best of both worlds.

[thespaceinvader]

That sounds like a good idea to me. I really like the current realistic shield, but so far none of the lettering styles have really been satisfactory for me - a completely different version to overlay onto the map seems optimal, and we could continue to use the realistic one for other purposes.

[LordBob]

The "hatched woodcut" style for map display of the logo is very promising. /me wanna see
And of course, it'd be only natural to make good use of the work you've already done in any context that doesn't require the book-style logo.

[kitty]

On the one hand a completely book style rendered logo would look awesome, fit on the map perfectly and would make us very distinctly different from similar games. That are big pros!
But on the other hand I'm very worried to read that we then would use three (!) different renditions of our mark - the realistically rendered for splash screens and as an icon, the book-style one for the main screen and a wood-cut like one for our letterhead. And all the versions in themselves would probably fit their purposes just right. But working that way we would destroy the unity of the identity that Wesnoth has created for itself up to now. to create a visual identity one has to use the same sign over and over again… Us already using about 20 different marks for different languages would unthinkable in a professional context - just imagine a worldwide company translating its name in every respective language and adapting its logo accordingly? General Motors being known as Allgemeine Motoren in germany?!
My point is that because of our localized logo our identity is already fragile that sense and that we should take care to not make it weaker by diversifying our look without need. If we want to use a book-style sword and shields on our main screen (the probably most important instance overall), why not use it everywhere else as well? It would work as a icon, too and could also be rendered in greyscale for stationary….


However first we need to find a font to agree on I did some searching as well and tried to find fonts feeling a bit medieval but being better readable that the last proposed batch. I show them here without any fx to concentrate on their shape as a first step before adding metal or book-style afterwards. They are from a a mixture of freeware and commercial vendors, just examples for possible directions to head into:

Shrewsbury and Perry Gothic (yes, Perry Gothic's "W" is awful, but the "B" is gorgeous) have a great gray value and nice calligraphic resp. blackletter influences that add character sensibly integrated into an overall very readable appearance.

HamletOrNot and Artemisia are further from the historical accurate blackletter idea, but their calligraphic influences make them more "sharp" and "pointy" and by that perhaps fitting for our war-themed game.

I stumbled over tons of celtic fonts and the longer I stare on them the more I can imagine them for Wesnoth - they feel old and have very distinct forms (look at Martel's "E"'s !) but unfortunately the irish association is just too strong. meh.

Beneta here is a contemporary re-imagination of blackletter. It has tons of character and its somewhat shattered appearance is beautiful.

hmm….

[thespaceinvader]

HamletOrNot wins for me, with beneta second.

[Dixie]

My non-sollicited peanut preference goes to Perry Gothic and Artemisia.

[Frogger5]

hamlet or not, then perry gothic. I don't really like that top one much at all.

[bigkahuna]

If this is a democracy (which I doubt), I would go with Hamlet and then Beneta.

[Atz]

PerryGothic would be great, if only the W wasn't so terrible. But it is. So I'm going to say Artemisia, followed by HamletOrNot. I like Artemisia's t, but HamletOrNot's curling h, so I can't decide between them on looks alone. I am, however, slightly concerned that HamletOrNot appears to have uneven edges and little nicks in the letters, presumably to create that olde-worlde feel. It's okay with the text as-is but might not work so well when it comes to applying effects - book-style lettering would be fine, but I think it would look weird with metal.

[lurker]

The letter "W" is important, since it is almost central, common to all versions of the game's name and might conceivably one day be used by itself as an icon for something Wesnoth-related. If you agree with that, that rules out both PerryGothic and Artemisia. The former's "W" everybody agrees is ugly, but the latter's is just as ugly, if you think of it stand-alone, or even only as the first letter of a sentence. My personal peanut preference would be Shrewsbury or Hamlet (the latter probably needing some manual kerning - just look at the "f" in "for").