Professional Practice – Week 04

The logos for angryPixel, angryPixel Design and this blog have seen their share of changes. I have a fairly short attention span and haven’t been happy with what I’ve turned out in the past, so I keep ‘updating’ the designs.

This has probably been compounded in that I have split angryPixel up unnecessarily, giving me more visual identities to create. This week, I have decided that things need reeling in a little, so any of my production or design work will simply come under the ‘angryPixel’ title, with a ‘by Scott’ at the end. This blog will serve (as it does now) as a process diary and for me to ramble on about whatever takes my fancy at the time.

The direction of ideas for the latest angryPixel incarnation had been falling short of the ‘sense of self’ that I had in mind. The current logo (below) uses the leaf/plant metaphor in a much more understated way and the modern font allows it some more flexibility to be used across several styles of work – which is indeed what angryPixel is all about.

I think by getting too attached to the leaf/plant metaphor, I was limiting my direction. Not simply because I was focusing on the one idea, but using a hand drawn style definitely gives the logo a very specific feel, and probably not the one I’m looking for.

However, I do think the concept has merit and I tried to explore it through to its logical conclusion (beginning?) by pressing the angryPixel initials into a seed…

Whilst I like this as a concept, I don’t think it’s particularly strong as a logo – at least not for angryPixel. Something is lost in the translation from hand-drawn to vector image and the final product reminds me of a superhero comic symbol.

Thankfully, I decided to get away from the plant fixation I’ve been having and try to play upon the singular idea of a pixel. The natural place to start is a box or cube…

Finally, I literally went back to square one. I think this may have even been an idea I was playing with when angryPixel was first established, which developed into the head id you can see on this blog now.

I’m actually really excited about the result. I think it’s a far more mature direction than where I was headed before and importantly, the box element will lend itself to many different outcomes – both static and animated. This identity has loads of potential as far as rolling out across different media, which hopefully is the mark of it being a good one.

I also think the different typefaces support the design well – in fact, I think they make the design entirely. Putting ‘angry’ into a near-script style font, not only takes the edge off it being a harsh word, but it adds a sense of humour to the design, which would otherwise be lost in the heavy geometry.

Next, I’m going to drop the logo into After Effects for some 2.5D treatment and see where things take me from there…