Calling all NPF graphic artists and illustrators
 

My company is looking to get a very basic logo package put together. In this thread I would like to get in touch with some artists, and also if anyone else has some ideas for a logo in addition to what I'm presenting here, we'd love to hear it! If you're a reasonably talented digital artist and can provide some samples of previous work I'd like to consider purchasing a design from you. So that you will have an idea of what you're getting into, here's some information about us and what we're looking for;

What we are: Four Heroes Gaming LLC is a small video game retailer preparing to open it's proverbial doors Mid-Fall 2011. We will initially be focused on selling new games online, but hope to quickly expand into offering a variety of games and accessories at reasonable prices along with other incentives.

What we need: We have access to the current Adobe Suite and enough graphic design and web experience to do a lot of design leg-work and maintenance ourselves. None of us are illustrators however, and my concept for a logo is going to need the touch of someone who can illustrate the human form realistically in dynamic poses.

We are, of course, expecting to have exclusive rights to the logo, but are not necessarily opposed to it being used by you, for example, to promote your graphic design portfolio. We will also be paying you. More on this later.

The Idea: The inspiration for this logo comes from the four characters predominantly featured in the logo for Final Fantasy XI. We are looking for a black and white logo that features 4 different characters (2 male, 2 female) standing in proximity to each other in stylized medieval armor and weaponry. Beneath the characters the text 'Four Heroes Gaming' in a stylized font and layout.

Alternatively, we are considering using variants on these four characters that would represent other genres of games (Four Heroes in modernized armor/ jumpsuits with futuristic weaponry, for example).

We will need 2 different versions of the final logo: One will be a detailed drawing of the characters with visible features, but must be simplified enough to be easily identifiable, iconic even. The second will be the same illustration completely filled in as a silhouette of those four characters.

The logo should be finally be presented with all files in a .eps file format. We will need a separate file for:

-The Main Logo
-Any Variants
-Letterhead Layout
-Envelope/ Return Add. Layout
-Business Card Layout

We realize that this may be a bit of a tall order. As I stated this is a paid gig but in the interests of full disclosure, we're on an extremely small budget. We are willing to go without certain 'extras' in order to negotiate a fair price, but just remember that the main benefit for you is likely going to be a good addition to your portfolio. We are primarily looking for a student or amateur looking to get their work out.

If you're interested, please reply in a PM with your contact info (email is fine to start) a link to your previous work (a deviant art account is fine), and a rough estimate on price. Whether or not you're making an offer, feel free to ask any questions here in this thread.

um, don't really want to come off like I'm saying you're bad for thinking this way, but are you sure this is a good idea for a logo for a new company?

Final Fantasy really only has one logo, which is FINAL FANTASY in Runic MT condensed, which itself works because its simple as hell and recognizable at a glance. the game-specific variations tend to be ridiculously complicated and busy, and really only work at all because Final Fantasy, as a franchise, has a RIDICULOUS amount of name recognition. Even though this is probably wrong from a technical standpoint, I always classified the game-specific variations as not logos, but cover illustrations that happened to incorporate the logo.

if you're a company just starting out, I'd recommend going for something much simpler and, well, unique.

then again, this is just the opinion of a second-year GD student who's not NEARLY as good as I act like anyway, so who knows.

No worries! Questions and critiques are good.

To address your post though - the image from the logo of that specific game is really the only thing I'm drawing inspiration from. We don't want to use the same, or even similar, font or layout for the text.

As far as the specific art featured in the logo of each game being very busy-looking: We're looking for a simplified work that takes inspiration from that sort of style, and will likely primarily use a silhouette of whatever the final piece ends up being.

This is definitely a legitimate concern and it's one we took into account when choosing a name for the business.

The 'Four Heroes' title and ensuing motifs are meaningful to us as there are four close friends involved in the creation of this business. We want to have as much association with video games and gaming culture as we can without copyright-infringing (all of our other ideas were too generic sounding for out tastes). Medieval heroes of legend are a common gaming trope, although I would also be interested in applying a different genre and style to these four characters as well so that we are not tied too heavily to the Final Fantasy-esque 'Warriors of light' thing.

I'd suggest not tying it to the FF characters at all, but instead go with four heroes, representing four genres of games, as you offered might be an idea, with the FF characters, dressing them up like that.

Or a crest, with the four heroes embodied within the four sections, or four genres embodied within the four sections, or what have you.

The FF characters idea just seems like it won't really be a recognizable/impactey logo, except for FF people, and feels kind of like you're trying to ride the coattails of Final Fantasy/appeal to FF fans based on it's popularity, than be your own awesome game store.

I don't want to be overly defensive about this concept - I'm clearly very close to it and becuase of that I am trying to see this objectively and I definitely appreciate the perspectives being offered.

That said, it doesn't seem like between Zelda, DnD, Dragon Warrior/Quest, Fire Emblem, Soul Caliber, and the loads of other high-fantasy genre games in existence, that characters in this motif are strictly associated with Final Fantasy. And I wouldn't want our logo to betray that thought! So this input I'm getting is good, and I may need to rethink this idea. I would love to get some other concepts in the bucket. I like the idea of a crest.

Let me show you guys some concepts I quickly made up. I did use the FFXI image and modified it to show what I am thinking of, and I can see in some of these where it might look a little too close to the Final Fantasy logo. But let me make it clear that we ultimately want something that is distinctly different from the image from the FFXI logo and identifiable in it's own right. The following is JUST concept art.

http://img815.imageshack.us/img815/2503/samplej.png

There is 3 things you want in a Logo
You want it to be easily recognizable from a distance.
You want it simple but hard to duplicate.
and you want to attract the eye and stimulate the memory.
I think this FF mimic will remind them of your competitors more then you.
Plus No matter the outcome it would seem Noisy and dissuade eyes from seeing the company.

Four heroes: Should be one of each genre, but still drawn in medieval style, with still some more modern genre attachments. So the "warrior" would also have an assault rifle, but be dressed in plate armor. The female Wizard would wear a headset like a voice with an internet connection, on top of having retrofuturistic robes. The Brawler would look like an antiquated Ryu/Ken in a chainmail Gi, and the White Mage would wield a staff but wear a rugged rebel medic outfit like from Half Life.

Too bad I'm an English major!

Ultimately, I feel like using a FF knock-off for the big iconic image of your shop is a mistake.

I'm sure you've already worked this out with your other friends, but I am interested in doing something like this in the future (although not with videogames), so on the business side

1) How much of your own money are you guys putting in?
2) How are you planning on differentiating yourself from Amazon, the big box retailers, etc?

1) Less than $2000 - Enough to purchase a handfull of games to start with. We're doing this part time and putting everything back into the buisness until it grows enough to start paying ourselves. We won't take a risk with a loan until we know that we're doing well with this.

2)Pretty hard to compete with huge retailers - But specializing in games and networking like crazy is going to help build a sense of community around our store, and hopefully the kind of customer base that we want. Clearly there are some good routes to go in order to build customer loyalty - discounts for multiple purchases, coupons or even a 'punch-card' system (but 10 get one free, stuff like that), and we'll use those. And we want to incorporate fun stuff too - gaming news updates on our site, giveaways and daily deals, contests etc.

But we're taking a lot of cues from some sucessful local game shops, and we want our place to be the kind of store that we would want to buy from, which means being a personable, knowledgable, and honest buisness.