While I’m sure most video games start off with some impressive game mechanic or revolutionary piece of code, Nixie started off with… a logo. While I had some awfully crude sketches of Nixie’s character design scribbled on the back of various work documents and some pieces of music in the works, the logo was the first “asset” of the game I actually finished. Of course, it didn’t go as planned at all…
I had a super crystal clear picture in my head of how I wanted the logo to look, but spoilers: it’s nothing like what the final logo ended up being. This is something that happens to me all the time as a graphic designer – the design looks perfect in my head, but just doesn’t land right on paper. I’m sure with some time and tweaking this design could work, but after sinking in few hours into this hoping that an extra shiny bit or cool angled glare would save it, I threw in the towel. I ended up with this:
I do think it is cool, but it just doesn’t read well from a distance or as a brand. I also had to come to terms with the fact that it doesn’t immediately look like the word NIXIE, even though I was SO sure it would read well when I first sketched it. I kept it around and thought perhaps I could integrate it into the character design, but also ended up scrapping that idea. Maybe it’ll be a cool t-shirt one day!
I started looking at other games for inspiration for a new logo design, but instead tried focusing on the overall aesthetic I wanted as well a color scheme. I had recently played and fallen in love with a Japanese rhythm game called WACCA, which had a stunning user Interface and very unique brand.
The more I looked at it, the more I realized this style brand could work for Nixie. So, I uh… kind of stole it. It never ceases to amaze me how I can spend hours and hours on a logo concept that ends up not working and then create a much better design in like 30 minutes with the right inspiration. I’m really happy with this design!
