new logo

[Sar]

why

[Sar]

it's so... smooth

[ontoclasm]

For reference.

[Siegurt]

it's so... smooth

I had to stare at it for a while before I realized what I don't like about it. I feel like the initial "D" should be capitalized. (Probably the "C" too, it looks weird with an upper case "R" and a lower cased "C") and the upper cased "L" looks weird off on the end there.

[archaeo]

I do kind of miss the cauldron in the logo

[ontoclasm]

it's so... smooth

I had to stare at it for a while before I realized what I don't like about it. I feel like the initial "D" should be capitalized. (Probably the "C" too, it looks weird with an upper case "R" and a lower cased "C") and the upper cased "L" looks weird off on the end there.

It's (based on) half-uncial script, which came before the idea of capitals and lowercase. Compared to modern script it looks mixed-case, but it's not really.



This doesn't match the ones I did exactly; half-uncial wasn't very well standardized and there are lots of variant forms of letters, like the "insular" T in this picture. I just went with whatever I thought fit best.

My main reason for making a new logo is how janky the old one looks. It's got three distinct outlines around every letter with no attempt at avoiding jaggies whatsoever. Not to mention that that png I posted is the only size of it that exists, so on modern screens you either leave it tiny or zoom in and have it all pixelated. I figured it'd be nice to have a logo that looks like it was made after 2005.

I can add in the cauldron if I ever manage to draw one I'm happy with (I tried and it was bad), but it's not like it's gone; it's still the program icon and appears in several other places. It's just not in the middle of the title text.

[Greyr]

It looks nice and all, but it's much more generic than the old logo. I don't know if I like that.

[Sar]

with no attempt at avoiding jaggies whatsoever

Why would it need to? It's a game where stuff is represented by 32x32 tiles. I thought the pixelated look is appropriate. I find the tiles that are too... smooth and colourful (what's the right term, the ones that use many shades of the same color as opposed to simpler shapes and solid colors) to be sticking out, not the other way.

[Sar]

I mean, the new logo looks too... modern. It's not bad, but it reminds me of mobile games etc. Crawl is not as retrograde as NetHack or ADoM, but it's still oldschool enough to have a logo that looks somewhat old-fashioned.

[ontoclasm]

I know what you mean. I'm not sure what exactly to call it, either, maybe "excessively anti-alised" or "painterly." And I agree with you on preferring sharp pixel-art. What I was referring to is the trick of constructing stuff so as to minimize the effect of jaggies without needing to blur things, which the old logo didn't do. For instance, here's the new cyclops by CanOfWorms (I think?): It has no blurring and contains like 16 colors total. But it still looks smooth and doesn't have obvious jaggies, because the shading was done well. Mostly the key is to avoid long, high-contrast edges, except when going in a cardinal direction or a 45-degree line. The old logo is full of lines like that (for example, look at the top of the u and the n) so the pixels are highly visible.

The new logo does have some transparency on the very edges of things, because I wanted it to look smooth against any background, but it's all done by hand rather than blurred or anything. I know that version looks really muddy on this white background; maybe this one looks better here?

[dpeg]

Welcome to the bikeshed!

Someone made a new logo, and bothered to explain why. (Thanks for that, I didn't know about half-uncial types.)

ontoclasm: I am a thoroughly two-dimensional person (R-Type yes, Duke Nkuem no), so I like the very last version very much. But it doesn't matter, this is art, so just stick to what you think is best. Here's to our new corporate identity!

[ontoclasm]

Well, I appreciate the support, but I don't want to be authoritarian or anything. No piece of art is perfect, and it's easy to convince yourself that something you've made is great when it's actually awful (or vice versa). I held off on merging the logo in until after tournament specifically because it's kind of an experiment; if people don't like it I'll change it back!

[Fishman]

I mean, the new logo looks too... modern. It's not bad, but it reminds me of mobile games etc. Crawl is not as retrograde as NetHack or ADoM, but it's still oldschool enough to have a logo that looks somewhat old-fashioned.

[BugHunter]

No matter what it looks like, there will always be someone who doesn't like it. If you were to roll back to the old one, you'd probably get complaints about that, too.

[Siegurt]

The new logo does have some transparency on the very edges of things, because I wanted it to look smooth against any background, but it's all done by hand rather than blurred or anything. I know that version looks really muddy on this white background; maybe this one looks better here?

The removal of the drop shadows improves it a lot, I like this version much more than the other one. The flat-ness makes the initial 'd' look less dwarfed by the size of the final "L" and makes it appear more balanced to my eye, and it's significantly less busy, which IMHO detracted from it's overall look.

It still feels slightly unbalanced to me, but that might just be my preference for more modern-style capital letters.

[BugHunter]

I definitely prefer it without the shadows. They made the "stone soup" hard to read because they were darker than the letters.

[chequers]

Put me in the camp that prefers the original, 3d version. On a flat background like this it's questionably better, but as soon as you stick it into the title screen or anything else even vaguely themed, it'll be better.

[pubby]

It's attractive and well-done typography, but man, you're throwing out a lot of nostalgia and recognition by straying so far from the janky old one.

[ebering]

I liked the version with the insular T so that the ignorant would read it Dungeon Crawl: Scone Soup.

[ontoclasm]

Put me in the camp that prefers the original, 3d version. On a flat background like this it's questionably better, but as soon as you stick it into the title screen or anything else even vaguely themed, it'll be better.

Well, the one at the top of this page was designed for dark backgrounds (like the loading screen), while the flat one's for lighter backgrounds (like Tavern). Shadows in particular tend to look hideous if you don't make them specifically for whatever background you're using.

[tasonir]

I like the new one, but if I apply my own nitpicking to it, it feels like there's slightly too much space between the letters (kerning, I think it's called?). I'd make it slightly more compact. Again, this is a minor thing The "capital" r/l I didn't even notice.

[DraconicPenguin]

I'd probably suggest adding the cauldron in the middle of the separator line, between the words "Stone" and "Soup", or perhaps even in the background behind the text. That would make the logo look more interesting. As it stands, the new logo looks rather boring.

The version with the drop shadows looks very busy to my eyes and can be difficult to read, so I'd prefer the flat logo.

[Siegurt]

So I whipped up a PDN file with a black/white/blue gradient file and put both the flat and 3d-ish text logo on top,

By applying an underglow I was able to get something that looked pretty good for any of those backgrounds:

That's the rendered version on black/white/blue gradient/transparent.

If anyone wants my 10 minutes of work that I did to add the underglow (I put an undershadow in just to see what it would look like, and put the 2d version in there too) I have a PDN file with all the unflattened layers.

[Wahaha]

Too modern (even beyond modern, attempting a bad "futuristic" look). I like the old one more because it fits the game better.

[duvessa]

It fits the game's current art style better, but it really is kind of bad. The colours make the text hard to read and the lighting is incoherent.

This new one is also difficult for me to read because of how freakin' wide the characters are, though. Even monospace fonts are rarely so wide that the characters look square. These characters look like they've been squished vertically.
The shadow on "STONE SOUP" could probably be fixed by just decreasing the distance, removing the background colour "holes" between the text and the shadow.

[dynast]

Its past 3am, im going to bed, tomorrow i finish this and try the new one.

[Sar]

why would you do that

[dynast]

I also missed the cauldron.

[adozu]

what i like the most of the old one is the light coming from below, suggesting darkness and danger above and around, such an ominous title it is.

new one is too nice, it doesn't give deliver the same sense of dread.

[dynast]

I made it a little darker and more faithful to the old logo, what do you guys think?

[adozu]

while i like it i think it's missing a detail: the different shades of red in the original letters are meant to hint at the light beneath the cauldron illuminating them therefore the division was irregular and pixel-y (simulating a shifting lightsource like fires are), a net divison between red/darkred doesnt really carry that effect.

tl:dr: cool, but maybe should make the shift of red shades more gradual than a straight line

ps: i might not be making sense

[dynast]

Oh i see what you mean, im making some changes atm and i will see if i can "align" the light from the letters with the cauldron. I dont like spamming gradients on letters though, i already did it on the "stone soup" and its gonna look too artistic if i put it on "dungeon crawl" too.

[dynast]

Doesnt get worse than that:

[twelwe]

why for do some of you have red cancels in your avatars?

[adozu]

really like the latest version now, ambient lighting ftw.

[1010011010]

I think the Logo should be more representative of the game, which I'd argue is not that smooth.

why for do some of you have red cancels in your avatars?

dynast is a professional ghost buster. I guess Pubby is a loaf buster.

[stoneychips]

"Too modern" is my first thought on the new one, too.

The shiny is nice (maybe to a point??) and the new take lettering is interesting, but for me it does verge on the highbrow minimalist side of sci-fi vibe or something.

And it's a rather dark game, at least unless you're always playing TSO? There is a whole lot of dark squares and unexplored territory. Ideally you find a lot of gold, but mostly we don't start off just guaranteed goldness. The whole modern vibe is also often laden with brightness, unbridled optimism, and you know shining, always illuminated streamlined skyscraper lines. The gold letters are in a shape and neatness that works more with that. In my opinion, of course.

[tasonir]

This whole thread makes me ECSTATIC that I don't work in design.

[futacatgirl]

maybe this one looks better here?

Yes.

This is really good.