During the first week of our project at Tower of Babel, I had the opportunity to create a team alongside Ali (AS). The idea for this project was initially proposed by Ali, and I was fortunate enough to be able to add some of my own creative elements to the project as well. We felt as though our ideas fit seamlessly together, so it make perfect sense to work together, too.
Our main task for the week was essesntially to simply review the Project Proposal and make sure that we had a clear understanding of what the project entailed - analyzing the project from various angles, brainstorming new ideas, and discussing potential challenges or changes either one of us wanted to make. We needed to be clear from the get-go!
One of the important elements we covered during this week was the logo, as well as font size, style and color that we would use for the project, specifically when it comes to branding. We recognized that these elements are crucial for the overall feel of the project, and spent a considerable amount of time discussing different ideas and options. The type of font can entirely change a viewers perspective on the game, before they even press play, so it was critical we came up with something fast and stuck with it. In order to take a deep dive to help with branding, we spoke with industry professional Derek Yates of Studio Blup. He states that the business proposition of a brand, which defines their business model and activities, is the most crucial aspect to consider. In order to establish their identity, values, personality, and behaviors, brands must carefully determine how they conduct their operations. This entails developing a set of values that reflect their vision and guiding principles i.e. the purpose of a brand should be the driving force behind its actions and decisions. For example. Paul Rand's notable work on the IBM logo and identity system showcased the effectiveness of a puzzle logo, where the final letter alone could be recognized as representing the company. Rand emphasized the importance of consistency and uniformity in terms of color and font choice. The influence of the BAUHAUS movement, which promoted systematic and rational thinking, can be seen in Rand's design approach.
Another example of effective corporate identity design is demonstrated by the pharmaceutical company Geigy, which consistently portrayed their business and services through visual representation. Otl Aicher explored the concept of "Moving brands," examining how branding could be adapted to the digital environment while drawing inspiration from Swiss branding techniques and incorporating movement. In branding, the tone of voice can play a significant role and is even subject to copyright protection. In addition to discussing font size and color, we also spent time identifying the key stakeholders and target audience for the project. As marketing experts John Hegarty and David Ogilvy emphasize, there is great importance in using the language and communication style that resonates with the target audience when attempting to persuade them to make a purchase. This helped us to ensure that we had a clear understanding of their needs and expectations, and enabled us to align our goals and objectives accordingly.
We discussed using a stretched out typeface - one that would really emphasise the forboding nature of the tower - but, ultimately, we decided to stick with Ali's sleek, minimalist design, which we felt captured the essence of the project perfectly whilst being easily readable and translatable as a vector across different sizes (as seen below, using Procreate).
In addition to our branding efforts, we focused some attention this week to visualizing our upcoming game space. Our objective was to create a tangible representation of the game's aesthetics in 2D format. To accomplish this, we created two concept art pieces. I took on the responsibility of crafting a concept art piece that reflects the essence of the inner city (as seen below), meanwhile Ali developed a piece that encapsulates the essence of the outer city (this can be found in AS DEV LOG).