LARP Logo Competition

The new LARP society is running a competition to find a logo.
For all you artists and budding artists out there, create a new logo for the society and you could win a years free membership and a bottle of wine !!
Be as creative as you want and let your artistic be free

Send your design and your name plus contact details to adamww@ihug.co.nz by 28th of October.

Competition will be judged during the next LARP committee meeting.

=> Entry must be in an electronic format.
=> Will be judged in both colour and black and white, (ie it must look good when in black and white).
=> Judges decision is final.
=> Ownership of all entires will be to the society.
=> Price cannot be exchanged for Cash, unless you already have membership then your fee for the year will be refunded.

After carefully reviewing the submitted logos, the committee have decided that we really need to be more specific in our requirements!

The quality of the work was very high, and enabled us to examine what kind of message we want our logo to present.

Therefore, we are requesting further submissions based on the following brief:

  1. We have changed the name of the organisation to NZ LARPS (or NZLARPS). This needs to be included in the logo, but can be as a byline wording (i.e. not in the graphic itself, but as text alongside/ above/ underneath)

  2. The imagery used should not be genre-specific. It needn’t be relevant to any genre or existing LARP. For example, a logo that is based around a sword would not be sufficient because we want to communicate to all larps, not just fantasy larps. The more general, the better!

  3. The logo must work well in colour, grey-scale and pure black & white (i.e. looks good when faxed)
    However, we are not looking for just one “killer file”, and we would encourage people to enter more than one version of their design for this purpose - eg a fax/ stamp version, a greyscale version, a web version and a print version. Don’t let this get in your way, as we can help you create these versions later if needed - but keep in mind that it is to work across all elements.

  4. The logo must scale well. It should look good as a large letterhead or banner, and also look good as a small graphic.

  5. We want to encourage cooperation in this, so will we will be flexible with regards to syndicate entries. Everyone who works on the winning logo submission will be rewarded in some way further than bragging rights !

OK here’s the low down on that execution.

What we’re really after is a visual mascot for Diatribe and the LARPS Society. That could be a full blown persona, a simple shape or anything in between. What’s really important in this assignment is that the logo is flexible.

I think a good example is DeviantART’s "Fella"
fella.deviantart.com/

He’s a dude with big eyebrows and a body made of simple shapes that aren’t connected. Yet, he’s also represented in three dimensional stuff, animations, pixel art and all sorts of things like that.

But he’s unmistakably the DeviantART logo guy.

Actually, check out the DeviantART “da” logo as well - it’s very nonspecific but recognisable, and has lots of potential.

And non-specific is important here. We realise we’re asking a really huge and complicated task, but we have one shot at making this our common seal and looking kick-ass forever.

And we can’t wait to see what you come up with!

Drastically basic but meets the new specifications nicely I think…
Lets get these designs rolling guys, I know some of you can do much better than me.

OK here’s my first real entry. The 2-bit colour one is pretty close to finished, but the colour one is no more than an indication of what colour will add. A bit more work to do on the basic design, and a lot more work to do on colouring. It won’t have that Fruju look it has at the moment though, that’s for sure!

Mostly, this is a concept demonstration - please feed back on the concept.

I quite like this - it could even be simplified further right down to just the jumping figure. You could also change the fill-texture of the ‘LARPS’ to indicate genre if using it in the title of a game web page.

I like the way the character expresses freedom and joy. Where is it from? Just wondering if it has any other implications or associations - the hat and that little thing hanging off it’s waist makes me think it must have some specific ethnic connotation. The way it swings off the end of the text is cool.

The character doesn’t work with that drop-shadow in the colour verison.

I’m not sure about the underline. It seems to overcomplicate it.

Like the way you’ve separated the nz and the LARPS. Actually, liked Ians method too.

The shape is taken from Vesta Tilley, a female, English male-impersonation stage performer of the 1900’s to 1920’s. She’s somewhat well known, but nothing like Marilyn Munroe or Charlie Chaplain.

So yeap, that’s a female! I think she embodies the idea of “being someone else” really well, and is a perfect representative of the LARP Society and mindset.

I have made the shape into a vector custom shape for Photoshop, which means that Photoshop users can simply click and drag to make the shape as big or small as they like. Still a bit rough but we can tidy that up later. It’s quite a distinctive shape, but not a “trademark” image of Ms Tilley or a well known image.

I also think the shape can be game flavoured quite extensively - like giving her a sword and shield, a space helmet, a skateboard, a spraycan etc. Colour will afford us those kind of luxuries, and I can see the 2-bit one also working as a distinctive stamp in any colour.

The underline serves two purposes here; firstly as an underline it adds emphasis and dimension to the text.
Secondly, due to its placing it acts as a stage. Now, we don’t do anything on a stage, but you get the idea :wink:

Having a “floor” also shows we exist in the real world - that we’re grounded and there’s corners and that we believe in gravity as well. This probably sounds a bit abstract but I think it’s very important subconciously. It’s the kind of look that helps inspire people like fathers.

I’ll try and whip out another couple of versions on this tonight and test its robustness and versatility. I’m keen to see other people’s interpretation of it too; so PM me if you’d like the source (as a work in progress).

One thing I don’t like about it is the font. Or, well, I DO like the font, but it’s Arial Black and the art snob in me is screaming that this is an opportunity to use a non web-font. I’ll see what I can find on fonts, but it’s annoying me that Arial Black is fine.

Craig

Actually, I’ve found my image is actually taken from a Vesta Tilley impersonator!

I’ll write to the owner and ask their permission to use the shape.

G’day Jo!

My name’s Craig and I’m part of a group setting up a non-profit improvised theatre group in New Zealand called NZLARPS.

We’re just beginning, and are in the stages of making ourselves a logo. We’ve identified Vesta Tilley as something of a mascot, and that led me to your website.

I was really inspired by your Great Little Tilley show, and loved the images from it – particularly this one:

prettygoodgirl.com/images/clickheels.jpg

So I’m writing to you to ask if we can use the shape in this image as part of our logo!

Please note this doesn’t mean we would use the image itself, rather use it to trace the shapes and use them.

I made this mock-up last night which would be pretty close to the final design.

images/clickheels2bit.gif

As you can see, the artist is completely unrecognizable anyway!

Out of respect for Tamsin, I thought I’d write in and get her O-K before going ahead with this. We’d really like her blessing!

Craig

Neat, I like the background.

What is that thing sticking out the side of her waist, and do we need it?

uh… that would be the coattails flapping. :smiley:

Ah, you’re right. But in the silhouette version it’s totally unrecognisable, looks like a small bag tied to her belt or something. I’d be inclined to take it out, I think it’s distracting.

Even if we can’t get that image, I think the general idea of a person jumping for joy / clicking their heels is quite a suitable one. I’m sure we could find a similar motif to use if that one falls through.

EDIT: or make our own with some photography. Which would leave open the idea of customising it for special occaisons or updates.

yeah, i agree. you can JUST see the other tail of her coat if you know what you’re looking for, but to see it without knowing how coats hang/swing you probably wouldn’t get it first time. Or any time at all. :laughing:

I second the idea of making our own picture for a silhouette, that sounds good to me.

Hmm, I recognised the ‘thing’ as coat-tails straight away.

I like the link underneath for the reasons Craig mentioned, and also it emphasises the jumping figure as being airborne.

The whole Vesta Tilley thing is an added bonus with the role-play aspect.

So far, I have to say this is my favourite - it’s simple, has a good image, can be tailored to situation (different outfit for the figure, different texture fill for the LARPS), and has a whole lot of meaning behind it.

I like the font, actually, even though it’s Ariel. If it wasn’t a good font, it wouldn’t have been picked as a defacto standard…

[quote=“Exquire”]
I also think the shape can be game flavoured quite extensively - like giving her a sword and shield, a space helmet, a skateboard, a spraycan etc. Colour will afford us those kind of luxuries, and I can see the 2-bit one also working as a distinctive stamp in any colour.
Craig[/quote]

I think the colour one you have showen us shows that we could do a gay larp. Would be a good political thing about Homofobia.
Sorry, those stars are just so… gay, to put simply. Bush effects are cool though, maby would look better with slightly less hue jitter…

Bwahahaha!

Yeah, someone else I showed said the same thing. It’s unfortunate that the notions that coloured stars bring up also trigger such responses as “0MG th0ze f46607455 h0m0z lol!”

Yes, the colours in that colour version are wrong. Before Malu said “try green” (without even looking), it was pink! That’s too gay even for me.

Still, stars are appropriate (doubly), and I’m not sure what would be better. One of the inspirations for the piece was this t shirt of mine, which uses splatters. Well, I couldn’t get splatters to look like anything other than rainbow coloured shits. In fact, let’s refer to the rainbow coloured things she leaves in her path as “shittles”.

With individual games, it’d be possibly to use their own stuff - the final version will include a vector path for custom brush strokes.

something like the shittles T would be quite easy. Make some random shapes with a normal brush etc and make them into a bush preset.
Making a brush preset. Draw on what you want, select all of what you want, go to edit -> define brush preset.
Then you can use the brush effects etc on that, and could hopefully come up with something more… universal.

Well the problem is what shape to make them! What would you suggest, Ian?

Do you have time to try a few varients yourself? I could email you the source in PSD.