With the New Xbox One Experience right around the corner, I decided to update my collection of "theme" images (basically home screen wallpapers) to work better with the new UI layout. I don't have any of these posted on this site yet, but since it already exists on imgur, I wanted to at least put the link out there for anyone who might happen to be visiting.
So, check out my new set of NXOE Themes here.
Before I say anything else, let me state that I always have a little apprehension about posting stuff like this. It can come off as "sour grapes", and that's not how I intend it to be at all. What I want to discuss here is the divide that often occurs between designers and their clients, and why I think it happens - at least, in part.
Recently, a website called petRockBlock ran a logo design contest for RetroPie, a Raspberry Pi-based gaming project they host. RetroPie is a collection of scripts and software that helps you easily set up your Raspberry Pi to use as a retro gaming console. It's a neat project, and if you're looking for something fun and relatively simple to do with your Pi, I'd recommend it.
Though I didn't win the contest, I submitted a handful of entries. I created three versions of the logo and presented four variations of each. That might seem excessive, but my intention was to try to show that the logos were flexible, and that I would be willing to make alterations if they liked any of the base designs. With this being a contest, there was also no opportunity for the typical client/designer communication that would take place under normal circumstances.
As with any design contest, there were stipulations for the design. Here they are, copied from the official contest announcement page, and edited to remove obvious rules that aren't relevant here:
Most of these requirements were easy to meet, but a handful of them serve to box in what petRockBlock was after; namely, a versatile logo which isn't generic, doesn't associate too closely with any one retro system in particular, and which is unique and not too obvious.
Based on all of this, here's a sample of what I made:
All are very simple, use an interesting color scheme, and weave in some form of retro gaming via the gamepad, the d-pad/buttons, or the blocks/pixels. I took care to make sure that the type was bold, and that there wouldn't be any small details that might get in the way of reproducing the logo at different sizes or on merchandise. If I broke any rules, it was that I used 3-4 colors in each, but that is a minor problem and I wanted to express each logo in its best possible form.
One other thing I did was avoid using any sort of pie, cake, or pastry imagery, as I felt that that was explicitly being rejected by the stipulations above.
Here's the logo that won the contest (by Garry Marshall):
By now you probably saw where I was going and expected this - this logo seems to break a number of the stipulations set forth in petRockBlock's suggestions.
As a designer, I can appreciate that to an extent. When I have a good idea I will try it out, even if the client doesn't initially want it. That's really just part of the process; if everyone could pinpoint what designs worked and what didn't without the designer's help, they wouldn't need one in the first place.
I also think the joystick imagery is smart. If there's anything more about retro games than a gamepad, it's a joystick. Building it into the pie is somewhat clever, but there we've broken the rules again. Or maybe when petRockBlock stated that they wanted designers to avoid the obvious, they meant with game imagery and not pies? I don't know.
But this is often the case with design work - the client doesn't really know what s/he wants initially, or doesn't have the words to articulate it properly. It's like when you have to take your car to the mechanic and explain the noise the engine is making - you're not an expert, so you're trying to communicate with someone who is in the best way you can. There's nothing wrong with that.
Miscommunication like this is a little more frustrating when it comes to design contests, since you don't have a second chance to iterate on the work you've done. But that's just how it goes. So while perhaps it initially appears that Garry ignored the guidelines and just created something he liked, I suspect that it was instead a simple lack of clarification that resulted in unclear rules that many others who entered the content chose to follow. I have other problems with this logo that I won't get into here, but I can't get mad at it for not following the guidelines.
If you happen to be someone who might ask a designer for help in the future, do spend some time thinking about how you communicate your wishes with anyone who might work for you. Make noises, draw a picture, find images of things you like and share them - do whatever you need to. Some designers may not agree with me in this, but in my opinion, it all helps.
If you're a frequent visitor of my website (and why would you be, honestly?) you might have noticed that the site's look has changed a bit over the last few days.
Well, as you might've guessed, I've updated the website's theme again, and will be continuing to make improvements and adjustments over the coming days / weeks. This is an effort to both make the website more clear, as well as take it away from the stark look it had since the last revision. A spring cleaning, with a little bit of fashion, if you will.
If you happen upon something that looks weird drop me a note and I'll check it out. Thanks, and I hope everyone enjoys the new look!
I've recently been dabbling in creating items for Team Fortress 2, via Valve's Steam Workshop feature.
If you've never heard of Workshop, it is a system Valve integrated into Steam where people, outside of the official game development teams, can create assets for use in-game and submit them for community vetting / approval. The respective game's dev team then gets to choose from the crop of community-crafted items to add to their games and usually, to sell as micro-transaction DLC, for which the original creator of the item is compensated.
It's an interesting thing, to say the least. Especially for people like me, who are already interested in creating 3D models and who already play many of the games which participate.
So anyway, I've been trying my hand at making a few items for Team Fortress 2, and so far, so good, I think. As of now, I've created four items, and with each one I feel like I've learned a lot of new stuff about the process, and about being more efficient with the process. So much so that I suspect that I could (and probably should) go back into the original files at some point and update them to include all the things that I have learned. We'll see though.
That's all for now... If you want to check out my Steam Workshop items, check them out here. I'd appreciate an upvote or two!
Just wanted to throw down a quick update here, since it's been quite a while, and I'm sure many people out there are sitting on the edge of their seats, wondering if I'm lying in a gutter somewhere. Many sleepless nights were had, courtesy of my lack of updates, and I am sorry.
Fear not, however! I am alive and well, and have just been busy with a lot of work and, of course, a lot of play.
I don't think I'd posted the above picture on the blog yet, so there it is - a tree painting I'd done some weeks ago for a contest and auction for the Sacramento Tree Foundation. Sadly, it didn't get accepted into the limited space of the show, but I'm glad to have made it, and I have more ideas for some other paintings in this style.
This painting was done in acrylic paint and paint pen on a 15" x 30" canvas. Here's the sketch the painting is based on (ink on 5.5" x 8.5" sketch pad):
During my time away from the blog, I got to go up to my parents' house for a bit one weekend, and went out on a small vacation to Sonoma with my girlfriend too. I had a great time with both, and the time away from doing work has been refreshing.
Speaking of work, I've got more work lined up for No Love Skateboarding - along with the rat image I posted a while ago, which was used for a shirt design and then reconfigured for a skateboard design, I've done a Denver cityscape and have a few other projects for shirts and boards on deck which I'll post here eventually.
I'm also working on a disc label and CD jacket for a friend of my dad's, Johnny "Guitar" Knox, who is a local blue guitarist in the Sacramento area. That project is going a bit slower than originally planned, but it's getting done slowly.
I've also got a logo to design for my girlfriend's cousin which I have yet to start.
And finally, probably the biggest time sink of them all, I've finally completed Dragon Age: Origins, after about 60 hours of play. The game was good, long, and fun. I'm glad I finally got into it. I've already started another play-through, but I think I'm going to take a break for a while so I can finish on my aforementioned projects, as well as re-acquaint myself with some of the other games I've neglected over the months.
After the somewhat botched Gears of War 3 announcement last week, I've been thinking about running through Gears of War 2 again on Insane difficulty, so I can grab all the collectibles I missed and have some more action-oriented fun for a change. I also want to sink my teeth into some of the Mass Effect 2 DLC that came out while I was playing Dragon Age, but I'm just not in the mood for another epic gaming marathon right now.
Anyway, thanks for checking in, hope the lack of posts hasn't kept anyone away, and (again, I know!) I shall try to be better with the updates.
Lately I've been working with Andrew Gelber, a buddy of mine, to help get his skateboarding company off the ground. So far this has included creating a logo, re-skinning a WordPress theme, and doing lots of other various graphic projects. It's not a lot of work, and it's been fun and challenging to see how creative we can get.
The above rat image was created to be screened onto the bottom of a line of skateboards Andrew will be putting out soon. I sent it off to him yesterday, and I'm excited to see the final product. It's a remake of the lino-print below, that I made in college for one of my art classes:
The no Love website can be found here. it's still pretty basic, and definitely a work in progress, but it's getting better all the time. If you're in the Denver, CO area and are interested in this sort of thing, give it a look.
In lieu of making any actual posts in February, I've been working on getting my old, outdated games page set up on the blog, and I'm just about done with it. All that's needed to do is add a few more games to the list, dress things up a bit, and maybe convert all the old games to GM8. You can find the link to the new page in the header menu, or by clicking here.
And yes, I've also been working on the Reflect Games re-design again. It's slow-going, as always, but it's coming. CSS always gets me down when it comes to turning a Photoshop comp into a working design, but I'm getting better at it. There's a lot to like about CSS - and in my opinion, a lot to hate too.
Anyway, I just wanted to explain my absence and point out the new section above - hopefully this turns out to be a better home for my games than the old site. I'll be shutting that site off and linking the "games" subdomain to that page soon. Consolidation is good.
I'm really disappointed with the new Game Maker 8 logo.
Let me preface this entire post by saying up front that I am not mad that I lost, since I had a logo in the running. I'm really just dismayed over the logo that did win, which I felt was one of the worst of the four runners up.
I also want to say that as a runner-up, I will be receiving a free copy of Game Maker 8, and I am grateful for that. I am glad that since YoYo Games has taken over the Game Maker project, they have kept the community involved as much as possible. I think that hearkens back to the days when it was still only Mark Overmars working on the project, and if you'll pardon the pun, it keeps a friendly face on the company.
Since YYG's inception, I've been a supporter of theirs. When questionable decisions have been made, I've tried to see things from their side of the aisle, and most of the time, I've ended up agreeing with what they have done. I've defended them many, many times on the GMC, in some cases above and beyond what I would consider what is "required" of the forum staff.
But this time, for the new Game Maker 8 logo, I strongly disagree with their choice. As both a professional graphic designer and a Game Maker user.
When I was brainstorming for my own logo ideas, I considered using a gear or cog in the image. In the beginning, it seemed a fitting and iconic thing to use in a new logo for game construction software, but as I played around with various other ideas, I began to feel that the gear was too cliched. I also felt that too many other users would enter graphics with gears in them, so I was not surprised to see that half of the runners-up had done so.
Not only does the winning logo contain the over-used cog, but it also makes use of a giant smiley face - which is, at best, a rip-off of other iconic images (Yahoo Messenger's logo, the 4chan C&H smiley), and at worst, a childish and shallow attempt to bring in a young crowd of indie game developers.
Also, it looks like it's crying.
The designer in me cringes every time I see it; every part of the logo is covered with gradients. This ensures that reproducing the logo in print will be difficult, and it makes the design look unprofessional. Not that Game Maker is a professional program, but this point doesn't have to be hammered home at every facet.
And that's the other problem I have with this decision - I understand that Game Maker isn't a professional tool by any means, and I know that YYG wants to convey this to potential users. And maybe they want the program to appeal to a younger demographic as well. But the bottom line is that nobody, new and old users alike, wants to feel like they're using a program that is gimpy or for children. And that's the vibe this logo emanates.
I suppose it's oddly appropriate that a tool for amateur game developers employs a logo that looks like it was created by an amateur designer. I just really feel that YYG took this idea and ran a bit too far with it.
Carl the Cog, from Conker's Bad Fur Day.
I've always said the power in a tool lies in the hands of the person who wields it, and not solely in the tool itself. And while I still believe this to be true, I also think it's important that the tool isn't made to look completely stupid by its manufacturer. Perhaps the many people who claim to be leaving the GM scene over this are over-reacting, but when a decision is made that so negatively affects the nature of this tool in the eyes of others, I can't blame people for being upset about it.
Ultimately, this logo was a piss-poor choice, and that's all there is to it. I leave you with this quote from the logo's creator, Albert Zak (courtesy of Game Maker Blog):
I’m however still kind of puzzled why only 8% picked this as their favorite, but I’m glad Sandy and a few others realized what’s really behind this logo.
Is this what's behind the logo? Maybe that's why the big face is laughing so hard.
I've spent an unfortunate portion of my weekend putting together a new theme for the blog - and here it is!
If you notice any quirks with the new theme, please let me know - I'm so tired of looking at CSS and PHP I can't be sure that I've gotten everything fixed (aside from the login screen, will do that soon).
Anyway, hope everyone likes it! I'm off to play some Xbox... or pretty much anything else that doesn't involve me sitting at my computer.
My apologies for not making a larger post right now, but I have exciting news for anyone who's looking to enter into the world of 3D design on a budget... I recently found out, through an advertisement email I got at work, that TrueSpace 5 (my 3D design tool of choice) is on sale right now for only $40! For a program that normally retails around the $199 mark, that's a heck of a deal!
I know that if you really want to get a job in the industry, it's best to learn Maya or 3D Studio, but if you're not quite at that level yet, or you just want a tool that's easy to use and still powerful in output, consider checking out TrueSpace. It's a great way to introduce yourself to working and editing 3D scenes, and has some pretty nifty animation and physics features to boot. My one caveat with TrueSpace 5 is it's lack of a good UV editor, but if you don't mind using a separate tool for this (or you're planning on keeping your models within the program), then you're good to go.
Check out this link to Caligari's website for more information. Anyway, I'll have a bigger post about some of my secret favorite games soon, but I just wanted to help promote a product I've enjoyed over the years for now!