The new Wesnoth logo and the Loyalist sigil

Contribute art for mainline Wesnoth.

Moderator: Forum Moderators

Forum rules
Before posting critique in this forum, you must read the following thread:
Post Reply
Atz
Art Contributor
Posts: 313
Joined: August 21st, 2008, 2:22 am

Re: The new Wesnoth logo and the Loyalist sigil

Post by Atz »

lurker wrote: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.
This is a good point. I think Artemisia's W looks okay in a line of text, but agree that it wouldn't make a good logo. Looking at it from that perspective, I would say that HamletOrNot has the best W. The straight lines and sharp angles make it stand out and catch the eye, it's close to symmetrical, it's very legible, and I think its bold and pointy nature is suitable for a game about warfare. Er, bold in the sense of confident and strong, that is, not bold as in bold/italic/underline.

I dislike the curvature on Shrewsbury's - aside from any other consideration, it makes me think of an upside-down McDonalds logo. Beneta's is okay, but I don't like Beneta that much because it's more difficult to read than the others.
Last edited by Atz on December 18th, 2010, 1:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Tet
Posts: 391
Joined: February 18th, 2009, 5:11 am

Re: The new Wesnoth logo and the Loyalist sigil

Post by Tet »

Can somebody give a catcher, why you are looking in new fonts at all?

I think it would be cool, if the words are not going over the new shield at all. Is that called placement?
My Temple Project: http://forums.wesnoth.org/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=29800
This is "must-play" campaign! Don´t read the thread, unless you need help. http://forums.wesnoth.org/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=31895
User avatar
thespaceinvader
Retired Art Director
Posts: 8414
Joined: August 25th, 2007, 10:12 am
Location: Oxford, UK
Contact:

Re: The new Wesnoth logo and the Loyalist sigil

Post by thespaceinvader »

Because that would be a major design decision, and we've not decided to change the fact that the words go on top of the logo, just like they always have.
http://thespaceinvader.co.uk | http://thespaceinvader.deviantart.com
Back to work. Current projects: Catching up on commits. Picking Meridia back up. Sprite animations, many and varied.
User avatar
Sgt. Groovy
Art Contributor
Posts: 1471
Joined: May 22nd, 2006, 9:15 pm
Location: Helsinki

Re: The new Wesnoth logo and the Loyalist sigil

Post by Sgt. Groovy »

Thank you kitty for your trouble in searching for the fonts. As far as the minuscules go, I like PerryGothic and Beneta best, but they both leave lot to desire when it comes to the capitals (I have considered PerryGothic before, but rejected because of the "W"). If we go blackletter, I think we should have much more outrageous capitals, which I really consider the hallmark of a proper blackletter font.

I could well agree with a Celtic font, but the one you picked is pretty awful. It has no visual consistency and it has very little to do with actual Celtic scripts (the "e" maybe, but that type is also very common in Carolingian script). I we go the Celtic way, I'd rather see something like what these folks are having (the white text on top).

There's also one thing to consider when choosing the font: it would be nice if we could get the text to balance with the "o" of "for" in the middle. For that, the "t" and "l" should be fairly wide, "B" should be as wide as "W" and the latter should also be shaped such that it can be kerned closer to "for" (being wide on the left side in upper parts only). A narrow "s" would also help. The blackletter fonts are problematic in this regard as they usually have very narrow "t" and "l". This of course would narrow our range of options for the font considerably. :hmm:
Tiedäthän kuinka pelataan.
Tiedäthän, vihtahousua vastaan.
Tiedäthän, solmu kravatin, se kantaa niin synnit
kuin syntien tekijätkin.
User avatar
kitty
Retired Portrait Director
Posts: 1290
Joined: January 2nd, 2008, 3:29 pm

Re: The new Wesnoth logo and the Loyalist sigil

Post by kitty »

So many comments on font choices - great!

Looking over your very diverse assessments HamletorNot and Perry Gothic seem to be the most commonly favored ones. That's good because at least both are freeware fonts.

Hamlet isn't extremely recognizable but has some pretty nice aspects - the already mentioned beautifully drawn "W" and some calligraphic influences like e.g. the lower case "s". The fact that it isn't *that* iconic doesn't have to be a problem, the whole unit of the shield plus the text needs to be recognizable, the type alone doesn't have to as long as it contributes to the holistic design. Now we'd have to test if Hamlet's uneven outlines would pose a problem with Groovy's rendering effects.

Perry Gothic's lower case letters are even more fitting to Wesnoth than Hamlet's style-wise but the unfortunate design of a lot of its capital letters is a real knock-out criterion… Perhaps we could salvage this by combining it with more outrageous capitals from another font. Much like initials in medieval books. But we'd need to find some font with some formal kinship to Hamlet in order to do so - strokes drawn at the same angle or something like this.



As for Groovy's idea of considering the width of the fonts letters in order to make the balanced - in a perfect world we should do so. But probably we'd end up with a completely hand drawn logo, if we had a hand-letterer draw our logo one of our requirements would be symmetry for sure - but in reality it is hard enough to find a formally fitting font in itself. I wouldn't recommend starting to sort out otherwise perfectly fine ones just for that kind of criterion. One can salvage a lot with some manual kerning and the width of the spaces… An other aspect is that this would only work for the english logotype - but we have about 20 renditions of the logo and a font that would center the text optimally in english wouldn't do so in all of the other languages. ;)
User avatar
Sgt. Groovy
Art Contributor
Posts: 1471
Joined: May 22nd, 2006, 9:15 pm
Location: Helsinki

Re: The new Wesnoth logo and the Loyalist sigil

Post by Sgt. Groovy »

I've been playing around with different text effects again, and this time I figured out how to make a sharp ^ profile raised metal effect. I must say, it turned out better than I expected. It seems to work well with both straight+simple and curvy+complex fonts, it handles different line width and detail really well and it works in large resolution remarkably. The only thing against it I can think of is that it's a rather overused effect.
Attachments
Icon-text11.jpg
Tiedäthän kuinka pelataan.
Tiedäthän, vihtahousua vastaan.
Tiedäthän, solmu kravatin, se kantaa niin synnit
kuin syntien tekijätkin.
User avatar
thespaceinvader
Retired Art Director
Posts: 8414
Joined: August 25th, 2007, 10:12 am
Location: Oxford, UK
Contact:

Re: The new Wesnoth logo and the Loyalist sigil

Post by thespaceinvader »

The font effect is bang on, that looks great - but I'm not sure about the typeface itself. It looks a little too complex for me.
http://thespaceinvader.co.uk | http://thespaceinvader.deviantart.com
Back to work. Current projects: Catching up on commits. Picking Meridia back up. Sprite animations, many and varied.
User avatar
Sgt. Groovy
Art Contributor
Posts: 1471
Joined: May 22nd, 2006, 9:15 pm
Location: Helsinki

Re: The new Wesnoth logo and the Loyalist sigil

Post by Sgt. Groovy »

The font issue is still unsettled, I just used two kinds to show how it looks on very different fonts.
Tiedäthän kuinka pelataan.
Tiedäthän, vihtahousua vastaan.
Tiedäthän, solmu kravatin, se kantaa niin synnit
kuin syntien tekijätkin.
User avatar
Eleazar
Retired Terrain Art Director
Posts: 2481
Joined: July 16th, 2004, 1:47 am
Location: US Midwest
Contact:

Re: The new Wesnoth logo and the Loyalist sigil

Post by Eleazar »

I like your metal effect a lot, but coupled with that dark, short dropshadow and the standard background, legibility is way too low.

If something like this is gonna work you'll need to add much greater separation between the letters and the background. I suggest a "rim" -- the blue part in my quick example ( i can't think what the proper term is). Thus you can guarantee that the letters are always on a contrasting background.

PSD attached not because i expect you to follow this exactly, but because it's not obvious how to make this effect, at attaching is easier than explaining.
Attachments
wesnoth-rim.psd
(1.07 MiB) Downloaded 233 times
wesnoth-logo.jpg
Feel free to PM me if you start a new terrain oriented thread. It's easy for me to miss them among all the other art threads.
-> What i might be working on
Attempting Lucidity
User avatar
Sgt. Groovy
Art Contributor
Posts: 1471
Joined: May 22nd, 2006, 9:15 pm
Location: Helsinki

Re: The new Wesnoth logo and the Loyalist sigil

Post by Sgt. Groovy »

Yes, that will make it more legible, but it will also make it more like my previous gilded manuscript letter version, which didn't get all that warm welcome. :P

I'll try something like that. Since the letters are made of a tangible material, the base would also have to be similar. Maybe some lighter, colourless metal.
Tiedäthän kuinka pelataan.
Tiedäthän, vihtahousua vastaan.
Tiedäthän, solmu kravatin, se kantaa niin synnit
kuin syntien tekijätkin.
User avatar
Eleazar
Retired Terrain Art Director
Posts: 2481
Joined: July 16th, 2004, 1:47 am
Location: US Midwest
Contact:

Re: The new Wesnoth logo and the Loyalist sigil

Post by Eleazar »

Sgt. Groovy wrote:Yes, that will make it more legible, but it will also make it more like my previous gilded manuscript letter version, which didn't get all that warm welcome. :P
You mean this? The problem there is that (it looks like) the outer rim of color is eating into the letters, which hurts legibility with typefaces that have thin strokes. What i recommended is a rim that goes outside the letter. There too your golden rim contrasted poorly with the tan map.
Sgt. Groovy wrote:I'll try something like that. Since the letters are made of a tangible material, the base would also have to be similar. Maybe some lighter, colourless metal.
As a graphic designer i feel confident in saying: There is no such requirement. Why would letter-shaped hunks of metal hover over a shield that in turn hovers over a giant map? It's not supposed to be literally real, no one expects it to be. You can pick and choose from whichever bits of visual reality server your purpose, and ignore the rest.

A light grey rim is not a great start for setting off gold. Appearance before physics.
Feel free to PM me if you start a new terrain oriented thread. It's easy for me to miss them among all the other art threads.
-> What i might be working on
Attempting Lucidity
User avatar
thespaceinvader
Retired Art Director
Posts: 8414
Joined: August 25th, 2007, 10:12 am
Location: Oxford, UK
Contact:

Re: The new Wesnoth logo and the Loyalist sigil

Post by thespaceinvader »

I could go for a contrasting rim, as long as it didn't merge with the already-contrasting leather section on the shield. The difficulty with the earlier illumination effect was that it simply wasn't distinct enough from the background, which rendered it difficult to read.
http://thespaceinvader.co.uk | http://thespaceinvader.deviantart.com
Back to work. Current projects: Catching up on commits. Picking Meridia back up. Sprite animations, many and varied.
User avatar
Sgt. Groovy
Art Contributor
Posts: 1471
Joined: May 22nd, 2006, 9:15 pm
Location: Helsinki

Re: The new Wesnoth logo and the Loyalist sigil

Post by Sgt. Groovy »

No, I meant this.
As a graphic designer i feel confident in saying: There is no such requirement. Why would letter-shaped hunks of metal hover over a shield that in turn hovers over a giant map? It's not supposed to be literally real, no one expects it to be.
It doesn't behave in realistic manner, but it looks real. I don't think connecting realistic with abstract elements is a good idea. Realistic metal shield with realistic metal letters works, metal shield with parchment letters would also work, and realistic shield with completely abstract letters would work, but letters composed of realistic and abstract elements would not. Your example falls in between, it doesn't give an appearance of any identifiable material, but it is affected by lighting and does seem to have some thickness. In a modern setting one would assume it to be plastic, in a quasi-medieval setting it will either look anachronistic or semi-abstract.
Tiedäthän kuinka pelataan.
Tiedäthän, vihtahousua vastaan.
Tiedäthän, solmu kravatin, se kantaa niin synnit
kuin syntien tekijätkin.
pixeL73XId
Posts: 8
Joined: March 12th, 2011, 8:35 pm

Re: The new Wesnoth logo and the Loyalist sigil

Post by pixeL73XId »

Speaking of typefaces, I suggested to try Servus Text Display font in another thread few days ago:

http://forums.wesnoth.org/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=33282

Here's my attempt to apply it for the Wesnoth logo. Haven't tried to combine it with sigil yet as I'm not sure if anybody will like this.
I definitely agree with those who say that the logo typeface should not be very complex. IMHO if the sigil is quite complex the typeface should be rather clean and legible. Another question is whether there must be strong metallic effect on the typeface if we have it on the shield.
Instead, the text could be perhaps slightly distorted (click and see the attached image in full size to see it better)

thx for comments
Attachments
wesnoth logo using Servus Text Display font
wesnoth logo using Servus Text Display font
User avatar
thespaceinvader
Retired Art Director
Posts: 8414
Joined: August 25th, 2007, 10:12 am
Location: Oxford, UK
Contact:

Re: The new Wesnoth logo and the Loyalist sigil

Post by thespaceinvader »

The layout is a definite no.

The font is pretty dull, and the effects are fairly random. We can do better.
http://thespaceinvader.co.uk | http://thespaceinvader.deviantart.com
Back to work. Current projects: Catching up on commits. Picking Meridia back up. Sprite animations, many and varied.
Post Reply