Hello everyone! My name is Max, aka WolfpackDragon, and I'm a Designer and Developer for the Creative Force team. I'm here to proudly present one of the first projects we have been working on and to talk about the process we will be using when approaching the creation of other content going forward. The logo set presented here is the product of the whole team, and we want your opinion on our work and process. TL;DR: We made some Logos while following the design process we will be using for designing maps and gametypes in Halo. We wanted your help to figure out which Logo in the set we should use for awhile. Let us know which you like best! ————— Stage 1: Inception - Setting the Parameters First things first, we needed a name. Without a name we wouldn't be able to even think about what kind of logo we would need. After brainstorming a lot with the team, we had a lot of potential names. We took several approaches from word lists to using a thesaurus to our core goals and focuses. We weeded out the ones we liked least as we went. Eventually, it came down to two. The group was divided. There was a group vote for the name and it actually ended in a tie. GP had to make the executive decision to use one. Creative Force is now the name of the group! With a name we were able to progress. The inception stage was complete. ————— Stages 2&3: Ideation & Prototyping - Expanding on Ideas & Rough Drafts After we finally settled on a name, we started thinking about Logos. Simple & Sleek was one set of initial design goals. A couple ideas were thrown around, and MythicFritz was the first to present a "prototype." Blaze Lightcap submitted a quick sketch of an idea he had. It had began. Many ideas were brought to the table, and several of them were quickly prototyped. None of them had tremendous support within the group but they are all as valuable as any other. We were able to get all our ideas out and see what worked and what didn't. ————— Stages 4 & 5: Alphas & Betas - Refining Ideas & Feedback MythicFritz and WolfpackDragon (That's me) began to play on the Realtime Board (digital whiteboard with realtime collaboration features like Google Docs). After throwing some ideas back and forth they produced an Alpha that would eventually lead to the set of designs being presented in this post. It was a combination of two previously suggested ideas. An arrow shooting outward instead of into the C, and a gear shaped C based on the design presented by Blaze Lightcap. Using feedback, recommendations, and requests from the rest of the group, we were able to submit a TON of designs for review.There were a lot of cool ideas. Not all of them were winners, but they definitely helped. There were a couple times where most people were happy with one or two designs, and we nearly pushed forward with an earlier design. We still had some ideas to play with though. This is also where we began to ask more and more people outside the group about the designs. We got some nice feedback. It was mostly family or friends this time around, though in the future this is where our internal testers are really going to have their opinions heard. ————— Stage 6 & 7: Release Candidates & Release - Final Edits and Release Document We continued presenting ideas to the group. At each stage, we refined our design goals & parameters. Each design gained more support than the previous one, or helped inspire feedback. A total of about 80 designs for the logos were submitted for review in little over a week. Finally, with a deadline set, we were able to get most of our ideas out for the Gear&Arrow design set. Here are the end results. Shout out to everyone in the group that provided Ideas, prototypes, feedback, designs and requests! In my opinion, MythicFritz was the MVP. Without him I'm not sure if we would have been able to get this project done at all. He deserves a cookie. What's that? We are so poor, we can't even give this man a cookie? How much do cookies even cost? We really need to get that Patreon page set up... First $5-20 goes toward getting Mythic a pack of [Mrs.Fields/girl-scout] cookies! ————— Stage 8: Post Release - Community Feedback & Updates Now its time for you to decide! Which logo do you think is worthy? Which one should be set on fire and abandoned forever? Does anyone deserve a cookie? I love the fact that we have more people joining. AgentPaperCraft made a few suggestions and we are reinvigorated. We are working on other designs still. The vote here is a preliminary elimination to narrow down the Gear&Arrow set to one Logo. Once we are comfortable releasing the other logo sets, we will likely ask the community for their feedback again. Thanks for reading! Don't forget to vote. Let us know what you think about our logos, the process, or what your favorite cookie is. UPDATED: Thanks everyone who voted. More info on how we went about updating the image can be in a short post below.
I like the bottom right the best too for the same reason as the others. I like that the middle right 'c' is made from the negative space but I'm not a fan of the smaller circles in the teeth of the gear. Another thing I like is that the arrow starts as a circle. This keep my eye looping around back out towards the arrow, whereas the other designs have me stuck at the point in the center of the logo rather than following the arrow out. I like the depth and dynamic look of the 3D logos, but they lose some graphic quality. I think it comes down most to what you are looking to get out of the logo. The weakest is the top. I really want to like the middle one the best, but I think the lines look cleaner than the dots. The bottom is the strongest, but my eyes get caught in the pacman formed by the negative space.
Top left is definitely strongest looking in my opinion. Though the C isn't defined as much, it is still my favorite by leaves. Second would have to be the bottom left. They are all pretty memorable though. Glad to have been apart of this process and thank you forgehub for helping us come closer to our decision.
I like the cog approach these logos take. I think it symbolises the team well every member of the team is a cog in the machine. I think in general the 3D logos are overcomplicated. Whereas the 2D logos strike a nice balance between complexity and simplicity. When it comes to which 2D logo is better it’s between the top and the bottom logo. Unfortunately the circles in the cog on the middle logo make it lose its boldness. The bottom logo puts more emphasis on the C, whilst this is good I think it steals the attention of the abstract force arrow. The top logo still has the C in the logo but it does not take over the Logo and enables more subtly in the logo. In my opinion both the top and the bottom logo are the best and it comes down to the approach that wants to be taken.
I agree with this. The middle right probably would be my favorite, if it lost the holes in the gear teeth.
Man... I was damn sure people would like the 3D variants... boy was I wrong. Goes to show I know nothing of community reaction to art. lol... I like the features of the left middle one, in particular the sphere in the center. But I also voted for the bottom right one as that is my favorite of the 2D variants. I love the prominent `C`. And thanks for posting this Wolfpack, you done good man.
Thank you everyone for voting! Now for the fun part of Stage 8, the updates. We heard you guys out, and now we think we know what you liked and didn't like about the designs we presented. We decided to try to take the feedback presented here, along with feedback we got internally, to guide our update of the Logo image. People liked the simplicity of the 2D designs. We are shelving the 3D designs, but might revisit it in the future for other purposes. The Circle in the center of the two middle logos was appealing, while the pointed start of the arrow wasn't really helping the design. The white dots on the rim helped make the C more distinct but accomplished little else. The outline to the C in the bottom images was much better at making the C distinct, while keeping the logo looking good. Using this feedback, we combined the outline of bottom images with a circle in the center to fully make the outline of the C while keeping elements from all three designs in play. Here is our updated Creative Force Gear&Arrow Logo. Shoutout to Skisma for putting it together for us this time around. Thanks again for the vote and feedback. Feel Free to let us know what you think. Is the new one better than the old Bottom Right 2D Logo?
I like the direction the updated logo has taken, it has combined what works to create an overall better logo. I think its the best logo out of all of them and has addressed the feedback well. Good job Skisma.
Since this logo seems like a direct response to my feedback, I can't help but like it. As much as I like my opinion I think it's more important that your internal group feel they identify with the logo, so I hope they do.
Honestly, after that was suggested and we had this version made up, it seemed so obvious and simple. We said "How did we not think of this before?"