For one of my previous design courses, I thought we took an interesting direction in creating a brand identity.  Spanning an entire quarter at SCAD, we researched and designed a complete brand identity for a conference of our choosing.  Our assignments were to create a logo, stationary, online presentation about the conference, collectible postcards, and a poster.  I thoroughly enjoyed this project and loved the design challenge of rebranding my conference. For my conference I chose the video game conference: E3. My logo design for this conference was actually chosen as a finalist for SCAD’s 2008 SCADDY Awards.  So, for this entry I will just explain the logo design I came up with.

I think it is necessary to start off by showing the original E3 Logo Design:

Now on to the show!

Upon deciding on E3 as my conference of choice, we did an exercise in which we assigned a couple words from the word list to describe our conference. To do this, I started by researching E3’s current logo and also other gaming conferences. Other conferences seemed to be stuck in the technology theme – their logos often using the blues and greens commonly associated with sci-fi or tech.  To me, I felt that this sort of shunned away a big audience, the casual gamer.  Video games have become popular with people of all ages and across genders.  I think a logo should reflect and welcome all gamers. I also noticed that E3 in particular had a very dated feel to their logo. This conference is supposed to be the place to find out what the next thing in video games is going to be. Yet, I kept getting Nintendo 64 vibes – like the conference was stuck in the 90s.So right away I wanted to modernize it and make it feel fresh. Like the video games the conference showcases, I wanted it to have a cutting edge feel to it, yet stay in touch with the target audience. Like I said earlier, the age group that plays video games is vast, ranging from kids, all the way up to elderly people. So the logo had to be versatile enough to be accepted by anyone. From my research I had a few signifying words to describe my new logo creation, “modern,” “cutting edge,” and “accessible.”

To achieve a logo that was modern, I knew right away that I would want to go with a sans-serif typeface. With the Century Gothic typeface as inspiration, I created a lowercase ‘e’ that formed into a ‘3’. I kept the logo very simple, leaving it one color to help reinforce the modern mentality. It is created using very geometric forms like circles and rectangles. A lower case ‘e’ is used because of how circular it is and also because it resembles a power symbol. The ‘e’ is purposely not connected to tie the logo into the products the conference showcases. I feel the two letters being connected together is important also as it can be seen as the circuits connected together in a circuit board. I also designed the logo to be reminiscent of a computer icon, to again tie into the technology theme.

The conference is to show the newest or best gaming stuff out there. I feel the technological ideas go hand-in-hand with the idea of being “cutting edge.” But I also added features into the logo to give it a “cutting edge” feel. The edges on the e and 3 are created with very sharp angles. As well as the counter-forms the logo creates come together in very sharp points. I wanted to make it feel like this logo is cut with a laser to reinforce an idea of precision and literally a “cutting edge.” Finally, I enclosed the logo in a rounded corner square, an idea that goes against my previous statements. But I feel the rounded square is a nice balance to the letters and makes a nice statement about the conference. It states that everything inside of E3 (the logo being a representation of the conference) is cutting edge, while everything else outside is simply not. The square also has other functions. One of its main functions is to give the logo weight and boundaries. The cut off pieces of the letters show that this logo is enclosed somehow and provides depth. It makes it feel tangible as the eye sees two different planes. I made sure to have the E3 still easily recognized by playing with how much was cut off and then showing people to see if they understood what it was.

With its rounded corners, it also makes it feel accessible. It softens the cutting edge and perhaps fears of technology that people have. It makes technology more inviting and thus reaching a wider range of people. It is almost like a soft package to deliver a very technology-heavy product. The corners invite you in, make you feel welcomed. To make the logo more accessible, I skipped the commonly used colors of green and blue, and went with a brighter and more exciting orange color. I wanted it to feel warm and inviting.