Internet retailer of Games Workshop products, but could expand into other gaming systems at some point
Industry
Retail
Top Three Things to Communicate
#1 - Wargames
#2 - fun
#3 - Trust in the WarGameStore brand
Our Target Audience:
GW games appeal to mainly boys from about 12 to adult. For many it becomes a lifelong hobby. The games are relatively complex and so appeal to intelligent kids. Generally higher income families. Significant proportion of sales are to mums
Color Preferences
Red (preferably pantone 032 CVC)
Black
Orange
Yellow
Red should be the main colour and should be suitably blood like!
Although I have outlined preferences for colour and style I'd love to see original ideas that might totally ignore them!
I like the idea of a wartorn, battered looking design. The strapline and bomb won't necessarily be part of the new design so don't be constrained by them.
WarGameStore doesn't have a bricks and mortar shop so I guess the .com should stay, but maybe a smaller font than WarGameStore? One thing I do think is needed is to make the 3 distinct words stand out. At the moment this is done by capitalising WGS but again you might have other ideas.
WarGameStore is a registered trademark and the "R" logo should be included in the design.
Remember that although the logo may end up on Tshirts it is primarily a website logo. I have a mild preference for the finished design to be a similar width to height ratio as the current one to avoid making the website header to big.
I don't want any of the above to stop you from submitting a creative design that you think will work, so feel free to ignore all the above as a different original design might completely change what I think I want.
Themes
Masculine
Simple
Colorful
Bright
Loud
Raw
Adventure
Style
Wordmark
Stylized type that may include small abstract or pictorial elements.
Emblem
A badge that usually envelopes the logo
Famous Logos displayed under fair use to enrich the general publics' knowledge of graphic design.
Applications
Web
Print
Diamond Contest
We're sorry, but this contest is presently open to a limited pool of designers.
Some general points. The slogan, "at the sign of the dot bomb" is used in the current logo because the letter "o" in com is replaced by a cartoon acme bomb. The slogan only makes sense if a bomb is used somewhere in the logo. Entry #12 uses it effectively but all other entries that use it don't have any bomb reference. So if there is no bomb then there should be no "at the sign of" strapline. Apologies if I that was not clear from the initial brief. As I said in the brief I am happy to see designs without bomb and strapline but its all or nothing. If you want to use the strapline you need a bomb. No bomb no strapline.
Having seen a number of designs without the .com I've decided that the winning logo will include .com and that I am likely to favour .com in a smaller font than WarGameStore, entry #5 is a good example of this.
Please don't take the current rankings as final. Even if there were no other entries I may well change my view as I will review these logos many times in the next few days.
Its important that the design works on the two backgrounds in use on the site. the Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 backgrounds are different, parchment for Warhammer and a grid design for 40K.
My site designer responded to an email I sent him earlier today as follows:
"The #20 is going to be tough to get working with the background, as any ‘grunge’ type of effect is going to be hard to show correctly. I like the ones with the bullseye personally, although I’m not sure how those will work on the background either. Need something bold and strong (like #19) to really show up well on the parchment."
But please look at both backgrounds and consider how your designs will look against them.
I've put a newsletter out to my customers to ask them what they think. Comments include:
"Great competition idea! I really like #6, by shleep, with the 3-colour lettering and dot in the sniper scope. Its simple, but effective, and gives the fun feel without distracting the viewer with lots of cluttering details like the bullet holes or blood that some of he other designs have... they're fun, but they distract from what should be your main banner ad for your store."
"My vote is for entry number #5. Its not too flashy or garish. Says what it is in clear, readable text and the bulletholes and crosshair lend something to the wargaming sales of the store."
"My vote goes to design #5. It is very clean, punchy and easy to read at a glance"
"I like entry #6 from shleep. It's clear and concise. I dislike the fantasy swords stuff or the bloody look which may receive negative reactions from parents of some young wargamers."
"I vote for number 6. Simple, fairly clean lines and I prefer the crosshairs on the dot than behind the text (as in number 5). I prefer the logos without the strapline and bomb for simplicity sake."
"Great competition idea! I really like #6, by shleep, with the 3-colour lettering and dot in the sniper scope. Its simple, but effective, and gives the fun feel without distracting the viewer with lots of cluttering details like the bullet holes or blood that some of the other designs have... they're fun, but they distract from what should be your main banner ad for your store."
"Logo number 17 by far the best (Grenade). Mature and well designed, I'd wear this as a T-shirt design."
I've had votes for all the designs but the people who submitted comments, as shown above, mainly like shleep's entries
My vote is for #17 jakubs design is clever and clean and would work best as a logo. well done jakub! and yes it would be great on a t-shirt. Be careful asking your customers for opinions because their pick may not be the best logo for your intended use. just my 2 cents.
The gun design is pretty good too. With the grenade, maybe just an grenade shaped outline to enhance the grenade look. with that pineapple/chunky outline grenades have. Then again it may spoil the simplicity of it. just a suggestion :)
I'm whittling down the designs in the last couple of days to exclude similar designs from the same entrant and ones that I just don't see as being up for serious consideration at the end. This is tougher than I expected!
The original brief requested the "R" symbol for a registered trademark to be included in the design. The majority of submissions have not included it. This has not affected the ranking as it is a detail but it will need to be added if a design without it is selected as the winner. If you haven't included it in you current entry please don't resubmit.
Tyler agreed to extend the competition from 7 to 10 days. I asked hime to do this because many of the entries have been from different time zones and this has meant a delay in communication. Had I realised this when I set this up I would have set it to 10 days initially.