The Risen Logo - Part 1
Picking a name for a baby isn't easy.
With two people, choosing a name can take a while, and anyone who has children has a story to tell on the subject.
Now imagine that 21 people have to agree on a name – and the wealthy godfather (in this case, the patient folks at Deep Silver) also has a thing or two to say, then you will have some idea of the problems we had coming up with a name.
The first step was gathering suggestions (some of them weren’t bad, but they contained tremendous spoilers, so I can’t list them here).
Everyone on the team had an opportunity to offer suggestions.
After two weeks, the list was shrunk down to five serious candidates, and sent to Deep Silver.
There, the names were gone over carefully (availability, trademark options, etc.), and feedback was provided.
The list continued to shrink until only one candidate was left:
ISLAND OF THE NAKED SHE-DEVILS
Nonsense:
RISEN
Then the baby needed to be dressed.
Kai Rosenkranz (composer, computer expert, and Renaissance man) was the first of us who had time to spend on the logo and created the suggestions in figure 1.
The concept of a highlighted, central “S” is easy to see.
A few days later, I finally had time for it and picked up Kai’s idea and doodled several small (often rather poor) ideas as well.
That is a leftover from my days as an advertising graphic artist and helps to pick out the concept you prefer yourself.
You can see most of these designs in the back part of this small tutorial.
In my opinion, PB has its own style as a studio.
So, for me, the new logo had to reflect that style somewhat.
My suggestion was to give the logo a metallic look and make some use of the serif-accented design that Mike Hoge preferred for GOTHIC (the basic form of the Gothic logo was his. In the beginning of GOTHIC, Mike was also the art director for the game).
You can see my first serious suggestion in figure 2.
I kept Kai’s “S” and, in order to give the rest a timeless note, I decided to use a TIMES font.
And all of it in metallic – the logo was ready for the presentation.
The reactions from Mike and Deep Silver were rather lukewarm – even if well-meaning for a first design.
So I invited Alex Stein from Koch Media (Deep Silver is their games division) to create an alternative design.
Sometimes, a different sensibility will bring a breath of fresh air to a concept. And as a graphic artist for the field of print, Alex has a good feel for logos.
