#projectbranding

[sayskez]

Brand Audit: DEVICE 6

DEVICE 6 was the first app I ever spent money on. Zero regrets. Even 6 years on, there is still nothing quite like it on any device. The style is impeccable, the central conceit so simple yet so revolutionary and effective: the written word is your map. You must pan in all sorts of direction to follow trailing type which might form staircases or branching paths as you rotate your phone in every direction and become utterly engrossed.

Eurogamer’s review sums it up well:

"DEVICE 6 is designed to linger in the mind long after the last code has been cracked and the last sentence read. Spy stories - even traditional ones - often haunt their readers' dreams once they've been completed. It's only appropriate, really. Is that a final full-stop or a microdot? Is this the end of the affair or an invitation to go deeper?"

Eurogamer - 9/10

Brand Style

Surreal

Mysterious

1950s spy aesthetic

Grainy television

Key Phrases

“A surreal thriller in which the written word is your map”

“…plays with the conventions of games and literature, entwines story with geography and blends puzzle and novella, to draw players into an intriguing mystery of technology and neuroscience.”

Brand Dictionary

Surreal

Thriller

Intriguing

Mystery

Bizarre

Puzzle

The actual visual style of DEVICE 6 is quite apart from what I picture for The Arcadia Report, but if I could achieve something with even a fraction of the engrossing, immersive feel and simple but so effective gameplay of DEVICE 6, I would be pleased.

[sayskez]

Arcadia Goes Social

I nabbed @ArcadiaReport on twitter so it would be ready to go as I start looking into more marketing efforts. My plan was to post more in-progress work but I was torn because I didn’t know if I wanted to make the account a more in-character element that could potentially even share clues.

For now, I have the account ready to go and will be starting updates soon. In the meantime, you can check it out at @ArcadiaReport

[sayskez]

Brand Dictionary

After looking at many different experiences from video games to tabletop to subscription boxes that captured parts of the immersive mystery experience I am going for, I noticed the repetition in some key brand words (such as thrilling) and the importance of catchy or intriguing phrases to describe the product.

So with that in mind, I set out to create my own brand dictionary of key words and phrases I could incorporate across marketing material. After whittling it down, my final list is:

Key Words

Immersive

Experience

Mystery

Surreal

Thriller

Key Phrases

“Mystery invades reality in this tech-noir thriller.”

“Transform your city into an escape room.”

“An immersive mystery experience, unique to you.”

“The mystery is in your hands.”

“Keep your eyes open.”

“Never see your city the same way again.”

[sayskez]

Hipstamatic Yellow

More yellow! Paul touched upon Hipstamatic in a lecture for dissertation module and I must admit I got completely distracted because the branding felt very in line with what I would like to achieve for The Arcadia Report. The bold black on yellow makes for an eye catching app icon similar to what I imagined for my project. I like this simple, bold, icon-like approach to the branding which is instantly recognisable even at small scales.

The actual interfaces is also interesting, mixing skeuomorphic design with the bold yellow and black icons in an unexpected way. I’m not sure if it quite works, it definitely looks a bit dated (though I think that is part of the point), but it is food for thought as I consider how to present the actual artefacts in the database which is this sleek, bold shell hiding the corrupted records and files. A dash of texture might be just the thing.

Check out Hipstamatic here.

[sayskez]

Art of the Title: DEVICE 6

I’ve looked at DEVICE 6 before in terms of branding (and will be looking at it again for gameplay, and probably again just because it’s amazing). While researching that, I stumbled across this article on Art of the Title looking at DEVICE 6′s awesome title sequence and the process plus inspiration behind it.

Title Sequence Inspiration

“Even though the game doesn’t take place in the 1960s, I wanted it to have a very strong late-60s, Cold War vibe.”

I love how they mix photo collage seamlessly with illustration and bold graphics and colours. Even their title sequence evokes the feel of classic spy films from that era. It reminds me of some of Saul Bass’ work and I think his work will be worth looking at as well for the ‘surface’ of the report (rather than the files themselves.

In particular, I also appreciate how though the game evokes this 60s, Cold War vibe, it never feels out of place or ‘old’. You feel like the character is on some strange island with this old tech but don’t stop to question the era. This is important because The Arcadia Report must tread the line to feel modern yet timeless so it fits in seamlessly with your reality.

The Backstory

I love how the title sequence is not just pretty visuals. It may look like that the first time but afterwards it’s actually telling the backstory of the game and how the main character ended up on the island.

In particular this line really resonated with me:

“...the overarching story begs to be read more than once — to be pieced together.”

That is exactly what I would like to achieve with The Arcadia Report.

Read the full article here

[sayskez]

Taglines: What does your brand say it is?

“A brand is not what you say it is. It’s what they say it is.” - Marty Neumeier

A tagline is the deceptively simple phrase which must somehow wrap up a brand’s essence, personality, and sometimes what it is/does all in a single sentence. When you get it right, the brand name isn’t even necessary anymore (“Just do it” is as recognisable as Nike, and their clothing can be the tick logo or even just the tagline, brand name nowhere in sight).

Reading up on taglines, I always come back to this handy taxonomy of tagline types. I think the type of tagline can say as much about the brand’s personality as the content itself (a mysterious film probably won’t have a descriptive tagline) and is a helpful jumping off point for brainstorming.

Looking at these broad categories, I think The Arcadia Report would be best in one of two directions:

Provocative (makes you think) - As this is a mystery story, a suitably thought provoking and mysterious tagline could drive this home and intrigue people so that they look deeper.

Descriptive (describes the product, brand, or service) - On the other hand, ‘The Arcadia Report’ already says little about what this actually is so the tagline could be an opportunity to expand on what sort of experience The Report is.

From a story perspective, I prefer provocative but I am not sure if this would be the wisest from a business perspective. Perhaps with enough brainstorming I might be able to put together a descriptive but suitably provocative tagline? Time to get out the pens...

[sayskez]

The Arcadia Report: Visual Grammar

After pooling my visual inspiration, I collected them into a visual grammar for the highlight areas of my project into a moodboard, grouped by:

Overall brand style

Iconography & Illustration

Imagery & Layout

Interface

The idea is to dive into each category in more depth as I continue my research and to develop the style but this will provide a starting point I can build off.

Check it out on Niice here.

[sayskez]

Yellow Book Binge: Part 1

This tome of a FontBook has been around the studio since year 1 and I always loved flipping through it (mostly when I was procrastinating on actual project work). However, I’d forgotten about it until, once again procrastinating and wandering the studio, I noticed it on the table. The colour and style reminded me a lot of my initial branding concepts so I decided to dig back into it.

I like the way the cover and branding use the bold yellow branding, reminiscent of classic phonebooks, but inside the dynamic is flipped. It is still clearly part of the same brand but each page is a standard white background. This is something I can learn from as one of my concerns with using yellow is it can be a very overwhelming colour and not something you would want in an interface you are going to spend a long time reading.

The chunky table of contents also reminded me of the directory in Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective. A good example of how to present extremely information dense content while maintaining a bold brand.