Inspiration

After having decided to move forward with my concept of creating a game about moving to Mars that would teach children about elements I wanted to create a strong brand indicative of a game. I used a range of influences to help me with this. I wanted to consider current game brands that children may be familiar with such as Minecraft and Fortnight. I also wanted to include popular brands from the 90s and games that have stood the test of time such as Super Mario which remains as popular now as it was in 1985. I used the above outcomes to influence the visual direction of my brand.

Sketches

Above are a series of sketches I created considering various forms of typography and imagery that I wanted to include in my brand. The above sketch of a boy was an initial idea I had of including an Avitar in the game that the user would control to complete tasks and levels with. This was created following a guide provided by Mitch Leeuwe, which I discuss further below.

Development

Following my initial sketches, I moved to create some digital outcomes on illustrator. I began by placing text on top of a circle representing the planet Mars. I experimented with including earth and a rocket in the outcome. I considered having the rocket circling the planet with smoke/ movement lines creating a ring around the outcome similar to the Space Jam logo. However, I thought that was cluttering the outcome. I used the typeface Aldivaro for Mars I liked the heavy weighting of the typefaces and I felt the spikes gave it an alien feel that was appropriate for the brand. I used the typeface Educated Deers as I felt it had a more military stamp feel that might be used on the side of a military spacecraft. I really liked the blend of typography and felt that both typefaces complimented the theme of the app and worked nicely together. I did however customise the Educated Deers type as I felt the gaps in the original outcome were not necessary.

Final Outcome

For my final outcome I wanted to keep the logo flat but suggestive of a spherical shape. I used waves of different shades of orange colour to suggest light and the planets shape as well as brown moon shapes to suggest texture. I also drew around the text in black to create a zoom effect adding the suggestion of movement to the outcome. Overall I was really pleased with the outcome as I felt it accurately reflected a fast-paced adventure app.

Mitch Leeuwe

As I have never attempted to create a character or avatar before I wanted to find someone that could help me by providing a step by step process on how to create a unique outcome. Mitch Leeuwe is a freelance artist based in Amsterdam. He has created a number of packages that provide access to video tutorials on how to draw. However, there is some free content on his social media pages that I used as a starter to help me with faces. The outcome of this is shown in the sketch above.

Outcome

I created the above outcome as a variation on one of Leeuwe’s Instagram posts shown above. I tried to make the outcome slightly more angular and the face broader. I also experimented with different facial expressions created by making slight changes to the mouth eyebrows and eyes. However, I still felt the outcome too closely resembled the example I was following. Given more time I would have used the outcome as a baseline for creating multiple character/ avatars that the user could then select from and name as a representation of themselves. Due to time constraints and my own limited abilities when it comes to prototyping in Figma I decided not to include the character in the final prototype. However, as I am now looking at including a multiplayer feature I may incorporate the outcome as place holder for a profile image.