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Inventors Guild logo?


dmw88

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Thoughts?

 

Im thinking 'azure a bend crooked sinister or' (blue background with a yellow jagged diagonal stripe top right to bottom left) for the shield layout.

 

Edit: I still think a protractor would look good above the blueprint...

post-38382-0-86123800-1551995980_thumb.jpg

Edited by dmw88
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Mocked it up, I'd love to hear some responses before I take the time to do a full-quality version.

 

Edit: I'm glad my old Latin professor didn't see the version I uploaded the first time before I noticed. corrected a grammar error.

post-38382-0-21729000-1552027651_thumb.png

Edited by dmw88
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I like the disign with the blueprint! However, you cannot really see the lightning bold behind the blueprint. If you do not know what it is supposed to be, you will not get it. Also, I think that there is too much blue with the blueprint on blue background.

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Also depending on how this ends up inside the game it might look like a logo for a writers guild, because the blueprint might not be recognizable (do they use these in TDM at all?) and the rest is rather common for the world (like in the mod logo or the builders).

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This is just a mockup. If we go with this general design, the final version will look a lot cleaner and clearer and be better balanced. There's a few things I'd like to change but I usually don't take too much time on a mockup when things will likely change anyway.

 

Edit: For example, I'll move the tools so they aren't overlapping with the gear, and rebalance the blueprint so that the math scribblings are clearer and more prominent in comparison with the schematic. Also I probably won't use something that looks like the Torah for it, and realistically it won't be blue either, probably a parchment-coloured background.

Edited by dmw88
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This is just a mockup. If we go with this general design, the final version will look a lot cleaner and clearer and be better balanced.

Still I would prefer an actual invention or the tools in the middle, otherwise my first instinct on seeing this would be writers guild...

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Artistic design-by-consensus is kind of a doomed enterprise. But since you're looking for feedback... The combination wrench looks awfully modern to me. Using the hammer and gear together draws direct comparisons with Builder iconography, which isn't really desirable. The blueprint reminds me strongly of a Torah scroll, and I don't know if having it be actually blue makes sense in the setting.

 

The Inventors are the mad scientists of the TDM setting. I think you should stick to images like clock hands, flasks, fancy clock gears, etc. And fewer symbols overall so it's less busy. Something more like these:

 

https://fbcd.co/product-lg/6995e425220a8ec8108a5fea18f64274_resize.jpg

 

https://betafishmag.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/steampunk-spectacle-logo-small.jpg?w=600

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Yeah, these are better and clearer. Especially the first one gives you what that brand is about, like right away. That said, designing logos is quite hard. That's why people take so much money for it, and usually spend weeks or even months on it :)

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Artistic design-by-consensus is kind of a doomed enterprise. But since you're looking for feedback... The combination wrench looks awfully modern to me. Using the hammer and gear together draws direct comparisons with Builder iconography, which isn't really desirable. The blueprint reminds me strongly of a Torah scroll, and I don't know if having it be actually blue makes sense in the setting.

 

The Inventors are the mad scientists of the TDM setting. I think you should stick to images like clock hands, flasks, fancy clock gears, etc. And fewer symbols overall so it's less busy. Something more like these:

 

https://fbcd.co/product-lg/6995e425220a8ec8108a5fea18f64274_resize.jpg

 

https://betafishmag.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/steampunk-spectacle-logo-small.jpg?w=600

I do like some of these ideas. Like I said above its just a mockup and the final version would have a blueprint that isnt blue or on a Torah scroll. Aas far as the number symbols, its honestly on the simpler end of the spectrum of early modern period guild crests.

 

Edit: I think what I will do is have a blueprint of some type of clock. The hammer will look more like the one in the sketch, ie, a claw-hammer and not this builder-reminiscent one. Good point tho about the combination spanner, I think I will simplify that.

 

I still think a protractor would make it clearer, I think I will try to work it into the next mockup if I can keep it from seeming too mason-y, in fact maybe replace the hammer with a folded protractor, and then maybe put it to a vote to make it semi-official, make decal and banner skins for it, and put it up on the wiki.

Edited by dmw88
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My two pennyworth:

 

- The lightning bolt may get interpreted as a purely gometrical zigzag, some kind of bend variant. That may be why the bolts in these images tend to have at least one visible end:

 

https://www.heraldry-wiki.com/heraldrywiki/index.php/Category:Lightning_bolts

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Lightning_in_heraldry

 

- Since the blueprint isn't clearly of anything, it might be taken for, say, an architectural blueprint. After all, the tools aren't part of the escutcheon so they only appear when the full achievement is displayed, and hammers and protractors are plausibly architectural anyway... Or go with a clock blueprint and it might seem a 'mere' clockmakers' guild rather than a club for scientists inventing marvels...

Edited by VanishedOne

Some things I'm repeatedly thinking about...

 

- louder scream when you're dying

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I like how this is progressing, it's headed in a good and unique enough direction. :) Continue the design and I'll chime in soon to give my thoughts.

 

Since other guilds have also been discussed, I might go over some of the symbolism typically used for various types of guilds and we can make a few CoAs once the Inventors' Guild has its CoA finalised.

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I like the left one! It's much better than with a blueprint in the middle which might have messed it up with the writers guild. I would say the right one could be used for the electricians guild with some modifications. And I agree that it would be cool to get a collection of all available guild logos...

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The left-hand one resembles the Builder symbol though: a cogwheel at the top with a vertical element below. Despite having raised the concern about the electricians, I quite like the one on the right in the centre, with the lightning potentially implying literal electricity, thunderclaps of inspiration, even Frankenstein-esque power over Nature's elements...

Edited by VanishedOne
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Some things I'm repeatedly thinking about...

 

- louder scream when you're dying

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The left-hand one resembles the Builder symbol though: a cogwheel at the top with a vertical element below. Despite having raised the concern about the electricians, I quite like the one on the right, with the lightning potentially implying literal electricity, thunderclaps of inspiration, even Frankenstein-esque power over Nature's elements...

I know what you mean with the Builders having cogwheels represented everywhere, but do you think it should be excluded everywhere even though it can mean multiple things?

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Here is something I threw together in Illustrator, let me know what you guys think.

 

Now that's some quality work. Hammer + gear combo is typically associated with Builders though. Light bulb seems okay; magnet, spring, that should do too. Maybe researching inventor academy logos would help further.

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I know what you mean with the Builders having cogwheels represented everywhere, but do you think it should be excluded everywhere even though it can mean multiple things?

'Excluded everywhere' is an overstatement. Think of it this way: imagine you're seeing them in silhouette at some distance. How distinct are they? How obvious is it to someone who doesn't know the symbols already that the cog-on-a-stick and the cog-on-two-thin-sticks are totally unrelated?

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Some things I'm repeatedly thinking about...

 

- louder scream when you're dying

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Now that's some quality work. Hammer + gear combo is typically associated with Builders though. Light bulb seems okay; magnet, spring, that should do too. Maybe researching inventor academy logos would help further.

I threw these together pretty fast and roughly when on my break at work. They can be refined and touched up until satisfied, I agree on changing out the light bulb.

 

'Excluded everywhere' is an overstatement. Think of it this way: imagine you're seeing them in silhouette at some distance. How distinct are they? How obvious is it to someone who doesn't know the symbols already that the cog-on-a-stick and the cog-on-two-thin-sticks are totally unrelated?

That makes sense, I see how it can be confusing once zooming out the screen.

Edited by refl3ks
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There's no reason for there to be a hammer in the inventor's guild logo, and including one just makes it more difficult to tell them apart. Otherwise they're quite good.

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I think the hammer is appropriate. This is a quasi-medieval society, so most social institutions would be quasi-religious, like European guilds and public admin would use Christian iconography. I see Inventors like masons, mixing a literal craft (masonry) with Christian-like mysticism & iconography.

 

This is just my own vision for them. More generally speaking, I think about FM-based world building like comic strips, where different authors can have quite different visions for their world with different ideas about key characters and groups, as long as it's paying homage to some of the canon pieces (like Batman's or Superman's origin story shouldn't change, even if you play it very differently). So I think even inconsistent visions can co-exist for something like the Inventors. They're kind of designed to be shadowy and unclear anyway, so ripe for different visions.

 

All that said, I think you'll get less complaints & greater appreciation if you use something other than a hammer, but still vaguely in the neighborhood, like masons themselves didn't use direct Christian iconography, but they used religious-like iconography.

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What do you see when you turn out the light? I can't tell you but I know that it's mine.

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Love the fact that its hand drawn, the result is very good, very nice to look at. I love the light bulb one, the intricate leaves deisgn. I think people would be more than happy to use these as they are... The one thing I would say is that perhaps you could replace the cog and the lightining bolts for hand drawn versions, as right now theres something not right about them since they are "vector-like" symbols. If you change that, its pretty much good to go IMO. Great work.

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I think the hammer is appropriate. This is a quasi-medieval society, so most social institutions would be quasi-religious, like European guilds and public admin would use Christian iconography. I see Inventors like masons, mixing a literal craft (masonry) with Christian-like mysticism & iconography.

 

This is just my own vision for them. More generally speaking, I think about FM-based world building like comic strips, where different authors can have quite different visions for their world with different ideas about key characters and groups, as long as it's paying homage to some of the canon pieces (like Batman's or Superman's origin story shouldn't change, even if you play it very differently). So I think even inconsistent visions can co-exist for something like the Inventors. They're kind of designed to be shadowy and unclear anyway, so ripe for different visions.

 

All that said, I think you'll get less complaints & greater appreciation if you use something other than a hammer, but still vaguely in the neighborhood, like masons themselves didn't use direct Christian iconography, but they used religious-like iconography.

Interesting. When I made the 'sun gear' banner I linked earlier, it was for my take on Mechanist-ish themes, for an esoteric group that tried to be not just inventors but heralds of Progress and the New Dawn and all that. Instead of being a religious offshoot with a messiah figure, they were to be more about supplanting the old superstitions with Reason, with the universe as a grand Machine, and Man at its centre having learnt to manipulate it; they were to be religious in the sense that Comte's Religion of Humanity was religious. Their public face was to be more of an industrialist group, so the 'sun gear' logo was ostensibly honouring the current religion, the better to supplant it later as it naturally withered and died.

 

(Incidentally, if anyone here with a Latin education knows about the semantics of 'futura', I've been trying to find out whether 'Ex malleo machina; ex machina futura' plausibly means what I want it to mean: 'From the hammer, the machine; from the machine, the future'.)

 

Of course, the very idea of a guild for inventors owes something to the glorious historical schizo-mishmash of the setting; what actual gentlemen scientists came up with was the Royal Society. I just looked up their arms and they're nothing like the stuff we're discussing here: a silver shield with England's three lions in one quarter, and more elaborate surrounding paraphernalia including two hounds as supporters.

 

On the hammer question, when it comes to real-world religious iconography there are lots of different heraldic crosses, some more strongly Christian-looking than others, and of course you're right, it's a natural thing for a pious armiger to want included; I wonder whether it helps that we're so used to seeing the abstract geometric design of the Cross, and we don't actually see crucifixions in daily life as we do hammers.

Some things I'm repeatedly thinking about...

 

- louder scream when you're dying

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