Thursday, February 2, 2012

The results of the ADOM II design competition

A short while ago I asked for help in finding a new design for ADOM II (formerly known as JADE) - the blog, the main screen of the game and the manual. A couple of people responded with design suggestions (thanks to all of you - I highly appreciate every submission) and here now are the results...

Before I proceed with posting the results I would like to ask you for the following:

  1. Please use the polls in the sidebar to the right to vote for submissions in each category.
  2. Please use the comments for... well... comments. Please refrain from flames or insults... everyone worked hard on his proposal and I highly appreciate the dedication. Anything inflammatory will be removed from the blog.
  3. Please use the comments to let me know if you'd like to see the complete redesign together with the release of ADOM II 0.3.0 or if you feel that this is not necessary.
  4. I'll repeat my introduction from the competition: I do not feel compelled to use the results - if the results are too inconclusive, etc. I also might decide to do nothing at all, something I personally prefer, etc. Don't take that personally ;-)
Thanks to all getting involved in this and to all so far having been involved. Here we now start with the proposals (in no particular order) - click on the image to see the larger versions:

A logo proposal by Kalle Kolari:






A logo proposal by Tero Juuti:

Tero submitted a PDF from which I extracted the main design variants. Quoting Tero:

The basic logo is quite simple on purpose, so it can be used in all sizes and still be recognizable.
The shape of the whole logo is not too wide so it works with both horizontal and vertical shapes.
“ADOM II” -text is very neutral. The colored area can be changed (using the color values used in-game) to give the text different impressions easily. The blue color used here is only one example.
“Legends of Ancardia”-typeface gives an indication of the fantasy setting of the game.
# -shapes are of course a game element brought into the logo. They may seem a bit strange to the first-time player but a more experienced roguelike-players will instantly connect them with the game graphics.
 


And here's his suggestion with a black background:






A splash screen proposal by Chris Lee:


Logos might need to be derived from this one.

A very complete proposal by Wojciech Mazur:

The menu screen:

The wallpaper:

The logo:

The redesigned blog:

Proposals for the logo and the website by Ravenmore:

The logo:
Logo variants:
The redesigned website:

Logo proposal #1 by Thomas Biskup:

I'd basically leave the blog and everything else as it is unless some other proposal wins for that.



Logo proposal #2 by Thomas Biskup:

Dito.




35 comments:

  1. All these are great, I love Ravenmore's concept especially.

    That said, I voted for Mazur's proposal because of it's professionalism. I think that a slick professional looking logo and layout will really help sell ADOM II to newcomers.

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    1. Mazur's is way too over the top for an ASCII based game. It doesn't reflect the spirit of ADOM at all. It's fine work, but it's a bit slick. Same with Kalle and Chris Lee's. Ravenmore's is the perfect balance.

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    2. I think Mazur's design would work great with a version with graphical tiles. (IIRC TB said you can easily write your own UI for JADE.) The remaining problem would then be programming it and making the tile artwork... :-)

      I also noticed that Ravenmore's designs don't seem to include designs for the game itself - only for the website. He probably can adapt it for the game if he wins, though.

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    3. @Laukku: I hopefully never said "easily" but rather "...it should/will be possible to...". Simply because I do not believe that it is easy to write a tiled UI in any case. And given the rather complex infrastructure behind ADOM II surely some nasty architectural surprises are waiting to happen ;-)

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  2. Can we vote for different components of different proposals? ;-)
    I love the slickness of Mazur's, I love the concept behind Ravenmore's, and I really like the style of Juuti's.
    If only we could use Mazur's style, particularly for the PDF etc, but incorporate the ASCII idea behind Ravenmore's suggestion and use Juuti's font and logo, overlaid on the combination!
    I'll come off the fence and vote properly later...

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  3. All are good but I absolutely love Mazur's design, my vote went to it.

    I personally don't see why an ASCII game should have a simple logo. ADOM II might be ASCII but it's a complex and epic game, so a complex and epic logo fits it well IMHO.

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  4. I like Juuti the best.
    It keeps old simple and notable spirit. Also you don't have problems reading it in any size.

    Second best is Ravenmore's, but a bit too 3D for old school :)

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  5. Mazur's is good, dut has 2 areas of improvement
    1. Green for "Legends of Ancardia" doesn't fit. Either add some more green elements to logo, or change the color to fit current logo.
    2. Main font for the name is not the best. It has good concept with the swords, but for people with bad eyesight like me it reads like "AOOM" which is not good.

    Please don't take this as negative, but constructive. If it wasn't for these, Mazur's design would be the best

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    1. In addition, it's kind of hard to tell that the swords are supposed to be the "II" in "ADOM II".

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  6. I love both Ravenmore & Wojtek's designs but I feel they are not exclusive, rather complementary.

    Ravenmore's simplicity, yet quite refined style of a classic roguelike feel fits perfectly with the inside of the game, the logo especially. It creates a lot of opportunities for implementation of these elements into the game's UI which I like a lot.

    When I go to a game's website however, I like to have all the information I seek easily accessible, but I must say I care for aesthetics a lot. Wojtek's proposal is amazingly well designed for that. His logos may not fit into the roguelike feel of the actual game, as said before, are perfect for the design of the blog/website, game manual PDF (perfect!) and forums etc. Propos for that, and don't get me wrong, Ravenmore's designs are great. But the website / blogs based on this design would just be a bit too gloomy and dark for my liking.

    Can we have both please? :)

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  7. Hello Everyone!
    I must say I like Ravenmore's idea, but the realisation of it is a bit off. I would definitely change the font and take it from there to more refined level, yet keeping the brilliant simplicity.

    I for one, would love to work with Ravenmore idea and am open to propose my version of his work as well, as prepareing my own project refined with ideas mentioned above.

    As I wrote in my e-mail to Thomas, I'm open for cooperation and refining of the presented ideas.

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    1. I think your work is really lovely. Especially that view of the wilderness - that makes me want to go adventuring :)

      GREAT job.

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  8. Hey, nice stuff!

    I think the point (well, one of them) of the ASCII graphics is that they can be imagined in which ever style the player wants, so I would like to keep the graphics from interfering too much in this personal interpretation. That is why my own proposal is very simple. Ravenmore's proposal would also work well, and I like how it works with the website. Though maybe the logo font could be even simpler, now it borders on the humorous.

    I noticed the contest too late to work on more than the logo, too bad...

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  9. I also vote for a collaboration between Wojtek and Ravenmore. :) Nice work guys!

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  10. I would also very much like some amalgamation and teamwork between pretty much the lot of them---each has at least one quality element as folks have stated above that can probably be meshed into something greater than the sum of their parts Gestalt-style.

    That said, was I really the only one to not see Kalle's and think "Hmm...if there was ever a chance for a Multi-Hued Dragon.."? :)

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  11. Tero Juuti's logo with black background is really classy

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  12. I really like Kalle Kolari idea-it has everything:
    dragon(symbolizing monsters we are goin to face)
    shining vast sky(as for world we are goin to explore)
    and ofcourse dungeons.
    Im sorry Thomas i didnt sent you my proposals (lack of inspiration & six-year-old artistic skills) but i see here are some great constructive works so hope you are not dissapointed ;)

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  13. Hello, first time commenting after years of reading but I found I couldnt in good conscience vote for Ravenmore or Mazur exclusively without adding my 2 cents.

    At the very least I just wanted to say I'm supporting the hope that they (Ravenmore & Mazur) may collaborate as I believe the result could be incredible :) such a nice design would be a huge bonus for the game, which is what I believe we all want anyways.

    Might as well mention my vote went to Ravenmore for the impressive logo, however once again I'm really hoping to see what those two could come up with now.

    Also I have much respect for all of the entries, I wish I had any talent to contribute too :P

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  14. Ravenmore's design wins my vote, its clean and simple, but captures everything ADOM is about (dungeon exploration, clever use of ascii representations, and the @ ). The webpage design could do with a little work - expanding the central display area by reducing the sidebars size so they're less intrusive on the eye and space wasting would really help - but otherwise a very strong design!

    Tero Juuti's design gets the second place star though, it is also clean and simple, without descending too far into just using ascii. ADOM really isn't about textures so I like the block colours and attention placed on visibility when scaling the icon. Unfortunately Ravenmore's design simply has more elements that can be used as a focus in other elements of the design and as such gets pipped to the post.

    I'd also like to say the other designs are awesome too, a lot of good work has gone into them! Well done guys!

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  15. Juuti for first choice, Ravenmore for second.

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  16. Wojciech's menu is so gorgeous and I love his logo as well, but I think Kalle's logo really sets the fantasy tone quite well so my vote narrowly goes to Kalle. However, If I could change something from Kalle's design I would move the dragon more to the right so that it doesn't cover up some of the beautiful ADOM II text.

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  17. Oh wow! I see other people really did their best for this too! :D Awesome stuff guys.

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  18. Wow! Ravenmore!

    Many of the others try to use more or less realistic imagery and it just looks cheap, really...

    Ravenmores submission is CLEAN! It's just what roguelikes are about... @ descending stairs endlessly. The rest is up to the players imagination. I agree with what someone said that the realization is not perfect but the concept is just great! The black on white variant makes for a very simple icon that can be easily recognized anywhere in any size. Just change up the font and it will be perfect!

    I'd sure love to have him design a Wikidot theme.

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  19. Ravenmore's is simple and the website redesign is easy on the eye.

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  20. Just to mention it once again: If you have not yet voted using the polls on the top right of this page - please do so!

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  21. Mazur's looks really good, but needs to steer away from Quake II's symbol.

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  22. As a professional designer (yes, yes -- I'd like to have submitted the logo, but I procrastinated, and now I'm sorry I did. If we got second chances in life...) I definitely choose Ravenmore's.

    Juuti's logo is fine -- it was my choice until I met Ravenmore's, but this latter one embodies both simplicity the idea and in the execution, and it plays with those ASCII-graphics-turned-to-3D that we have more than once commented around here. Really, Ravenmore, good work.

    And don't worry, Thomas, I've voted on the sidebar already. :)

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  23. I suddenly realised that only logo which will fit to this game is Kalle or Tero.

    Imagine,this will not be yet another rogoulike and look: Ravenmore's project fits actually to any rogoulike...Its all about exploring dungeons with your "@" character right?

    While this game is goin to include alot of "non-dungeon" stuff(water stuff,armies,flying ships(?),random events,world exploration,even more... )which one may exclude looking at the startup screen of ADOM II.
    Thomas,if you are goin to base your decision only these voting results, I would seriously consider "shifting" the final step(about this case) to very further plan and maybe give it time to let it grow more mature ;)

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  24. I like Tero Juuti's for being simple and bold. Like ASCII, it leaves a lot to the imagination (which is a good thing). I would even cut out the blue accents. "ADOM" is always going to look great in a big bold font on a black background. You don't have to do much to it.

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  25. best three are: mazur, ravenmore and juuti.

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  26. I like the submission by Wojciech Mazur, since it's really nice visually, and you can use it to do a complete overhaul of the website.

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  27. Am I the only one (or one of two, apparently) that likes TB's 2nd logo the best of all of them? It's the background and gleaming font that sold it for me.

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  28. Tero Jutti's is currently the best I see,the others are...unfavorable to my ascii riddled mind,to use a American idiom Keep It Simple Stupid.Look at the dwarf fortress site for the type of format I personally enjoy for my roguelikes

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