LOST CAUSE GAMES
brief:
Client focused projects will be drawn from ‘real world’ briefs and may be led by a professional account handler, client or project manager and will be worked on in teams.
For this project, we were presented with a series of different briefs to choose from. However due to the high volume of designers per brief, I decided that it would be most beneficial to my portfolio to expand my search outside of this. I sat down with one of my classmates and friends Shaz, a game developer, who is looking into setting up an indie game dev company. First things first was to work out exactly what she was looking for, which can be seen below. Then I was able to work out how I can best utilise my skills for this project, and decided I wanted to take on the branding side of it (as that is a weak point) and involve another classmate, Andrew, who is incredible at website design.
During my conversation with Shaz, a few key points stuck out:
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Overarching storyline/world with different subsections/subthemes that make up each game. “Easter eggs” hidden within the different games which are part of the wider environment. There will be the opportunity to share experiences and awareness within the narrative of the game.
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Horror theme with no sugar coating of storylines.
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Semi-souls with tarot and dark botanical pieces with accents of enchanted forest
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Element of sharing lived experiences.
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Both of us have had a lot of periods in our life in which people saw us as lost causes, like there was no way that they could help us because of how complex our needs are. This gave us the idea to call the studio Lost Cause Games, for all the other people in the gaming community who have felt like a lost cause.
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The gaming community is well known to be heavily made up for autistic people. A quote from National Autistic Society reads, “Online gaming means autistic people can play in an environment we feel comfortable in and can control” {2.1 National Autistic Society, N.D.}. Autism, by nature, means that we struggle with social interaction which can lead to increased rates of social isolation {2.2 Gómez-Campos et al., 2023}, which can leave individuals feeling like a “lost cause”.
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intro:
deliverables:
For this project, I wanted a challenge. Games is a brand new area for me and I haven’t touched branding work in a long time, so decided to combine the two! With Andrew on board as the website designer, I was able to get on with the branding. Below is a list of the deliverables from my side of the project:
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Mood boards
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Logo design
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Custom font
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Branding guidelines
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Graphics that can be used as accents for work done
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PNG, JPG, Procreate & PSD files of logo and design assets
In order to make sure that the website designer has everything they need, I decided to send over some rough sketches of the logo that could act as placeholder images as well as a very condensed down version of the colour pallet. This meant that I wasn’t delaying his work whilst I designed the assets. This worked really well as I was expecting a lot of the items to be less time consuming then they were.
planning:
the vibe:
As soon as I had the conversation with Shaz, I knew exactly the vibe I was going to be going down. I started exploring enchanted forest aesthetics and worked on creating a mood board as seen below. After creating this, I added both Shaz and Andrew (web designer) to the board so that they can give feedback on it and add as needed.
Figure 5.1 mood board of Lost Cause Games
On the back of this research, I decided to switch my approach from my normal design process, and create a digital sensory board. As an autistic and dyslexic person, sensory seeking is my way of exploring the world. Sensory seeking can be defined as “Sensory processing is your brain’s way of assessing how the input from your environment is affecting your body” {6.1 Garber, 2021}. For me, I rely heavily on touch and smell. I struggle to understand both people and words, which leads me to residing heavily in nature.
There is nothing better to me than the deep warm smell of soil after a heavy rain, with the moss making your feet bounce, the ability to take a deep breath in the crisp air, the crackle of branches and leaves, the birds singing at the top of their lungs, the comfort in the quiet. This is what I wanted to show within this design pack. I started expanding on the above points into more fleshed out visual representations/digital sensory board {6.2 Conde, 2024}, as seen below {6.3}.
creative journey:
Figure 6.3 sensory board for LCG
logo:
Now I had decided on a set aesthetic for the project, I started on sketching a logo idea. For this I decided to embody the enchanted forest theme, creating a keyhole showcasing a hidden garden. This took far longer than anticipated due to the number of iterations and the amount of tweaking needed following client feedback. Below you can see all of the different stages and iterations of the logo from start to finish. The art style changed massively throughout the process but overall I am really happy with the final design.
Figure 7.1 first iteration sketch of the logo
Now that I had created the logo, I decided to expand on this. I decided I would create a hand drawn animation of the journey through the key hole as the landing page for the website and splash screen for the games.
splash screen
Figure 7.8 examples of splash screens from different games
As someone who is not a gamer, I went into this project with very little knowledge about video games, so took this as a challenge to expand my understanding. I decided to take a design concept which I know very well (but hadn’t had a chance to create) of a landing page. This is typically used for websites {7.9 Mailchimp, N.D.} but is an adapted concept for game studios who use a ‘splash screen’ {7.10 Wikipedia, 2020}.
Figure 7.3 & 7.4 the keyhole design process
At first I was worried that it was unnecessary extra work, but after some careful research, I realised its true importance within games {7.12 xtommy21, 2022}. Splash screens are used to give the user some entertainment or distraction whilst game elements load (especially for large games), and usually only last for 1 or 2 seconds. With this in mind, I decided to keep the games splash screen as just the logo, and then create a fully fleshed out animation for the website and promotional materials.
Figure 7.11 finished LCG splash screen/loading screen animation hand drawn on procreate
From this I then decided I was going to try adding colour to the logo as it was presenting as very flat on the page. I added midnight blue backgrounds with a lighter blue in the centre to add depth. With this I then brought in small stars to make it seem like a stary night, playing into the dark botanical theme that was discussed earlier. Both me and my client decided that we much prefer the new coloured logo compared to the previous ones. The infill of the colour in the letters, means that it is easier to distinguish between the letters.
Figure 7.6 timelapse of the typography changes
Once we decided that we wanted to move away from the point typography, I looked more into a curved serif design which you can see below. However, I decided that it looked too much like the supplement company Seven Seas logo, mixed with the Shrek logo (a weird combination I know!).
By this point, I knew I had one last shot at the logo as my time was running out. I combined the original idea of the pointy typography and mixed it with the most recent iteration, to create the final design. It uses the over curvature of the letters, with pointy corners and the deep colouring from the logo. I love the final outcome, I feel like it truly embodies the enchantment theme and is a perfect combination of all of the previous versions. Shaz, my client, also decided that she would like a slightly different, cooler tone of the green background, which we worked on together to incorporate into the final design.
Figure 7.7 the final lost cause logo
hard work pays off:
After long discussions with my client, I am pleased to say that she loves the designs, as does everyone I have shown!
references:
introduction
brief
1.1: Chloe Hayden
1.2: (un)Masked
deliverables
success?
hard work pays off
2,1 ‘Online gaming means autistic people can play in an environment we feel comfortable in and can control.’ (n.d.) Www.autism.org.uk. Available at:
https://www.autism.org.uk/advice-and-guidance/stories/stories-from-the-spectrum-barrington
2.2 Gómez-Campos, R., Vidal Espinoza, R., Castro-Fuentes, C., Flores-Vergara, S., Gálvez-Zurita, J., Urra-Albornoz, C., la Torre Choque, C. D., and Bolaños, M. C. (2023) Comparison of social isolation in autistic children and adolescents according to age, marital status and number of siblings. Journal of Education and Health Promotion 12 316.
planning
the vibe
research and development
6.1 Garber, J. (2021) More, more, too much: Understanding sensory seeking. South Shore Health. Available at: https://www.southshorehealth.org/wellness/blog/sensory-seeking-in-children-how-to-treat-sensory-seeking-behavior.
Conde, A. (2024) How to create a sensory board with natural elements - Revista Landuum. Landuum. Available at:
7.9 Garber, J. (2021) More, more, too much: Understanding sensory seeking. South Shore Health. Available at: https://www.southshorehealth.org/wellness/blog/sensory-seeking-in-children-how-to-treat-sensory-seeking-behavior.
logo
7.10 Wikipedia (2020) Splash screen. Wikipedia. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Splash_screen#:~:text=A%20splash%20screen%20is%20a
7.12 xtommy21 (2022) Should my game have a splash screen? Reddit. Available at: https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/sda1v4/should_my_game_have_a_splash_screen/
brand book
SDG
9.1 United Nations (2024) Goal 8 | Department of Economic and Social Affairs. United Nations. United Nations Available at:
success?
hard work pays off
brand book:
Now that I had the logo mastered, I could put together a full brand book of guidelines for using the branding. This was by far my favourite stage of the project. I was able to bring everything together and watch it play out.
Figure 8.1 Brand book
font & typography
I originally set out to create a custom font for LCG based off the typography of the logo design. However once I had finished this and tested it out, I decided I hated it! The issue that I had with it is that each of the letters in the logo are based off the surrounding letters, making it completely customised to the text that’s written. This unfortunately meant that the font design wouldn’t work due to spacing issues. By the time I had realised this, I had spent over 8 hours on the design! This meant that I was significantly further behind on the project than I had hoped to be. I am glad that I tried to create I font, even though it wasn’t successful, because I now know how to design and publish one.
Figure 8.2 font table
Figure 8.3 example text
I originally set out to create a custom font for LCG based off the typography of the logo design. However once I had finished this and tested it out, I decided I hated it! The issue that I had with it is that each of the letters in the logo are based off the surrounding letters, making it completely customised to the text that’s written. This unfortunately meant that the font design wouldn’t work due to spacing issues. By the time I had realised this, I had spent over 8 hours on the design! This meant that I was significantly further behind on the project than I had hoped to be. I am glad that I tried to create I font, even though it wasn’t successful, because I now know how to design and publish one.
logo variations
As part of the brand book, I altered the finished logo designs so that Shaz would have different options for if she was using them on a light background, dark background etc. As part of this, I also created a variant without the keyhole design for legibility when the logo is small.
Figure 7.2 second 2 iterations of the logo design featuring the geometric typography
The first couple of iterations were based heavily on the original logo sketch that I created, with a geometric font style in white on a black background. For the keyhole design I based it off my sketch on the senses board above.
SDG 8
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Plans for expansion into a full studio rather than just Shaz, creating employment opportunities for other game devs and designers
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Hones in on a niche of women in STEM and helping autistic individuals in particular to get productive employment
Figure 9.1 of the SDG 8
Going back to my previous section of deliverables, lets see if I have managed to meet them:
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Mood boards
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Yes! The mood boards look incredible and are both a flat JPG and a Pinterest board which the client can add to.
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Logo design
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Yup!
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Custom font
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As discussed above, due to technical issues this one wasn’t met. However I did manage to provide a very similar alternative font which is available for download, which I included in the WeTransfer pack to my client.
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Branding guidelines
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Created an entire brand book with the guidelines included
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Graphics that can be used as accents for work done
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Yes, see brand book
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PNG, JPG, Procreate & PSD files of logo and design assets
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Yes, sent over in a WeTransfer file of all of the above formats as well as the procreate files in case they would like to change anything in the future.
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success?
Figure 7.5 the changes in the typography of the logo
After creating the two versions of the geometric typography, I decided that they didn’t fit the vibe of enchanted forest enough to be used as the logo. I also decided to change the background colour to a moss green to embody the keyhole design. I started looking at creating a more elegant design which is based off the original geometric designs, but harnessing the curved of the keyhole. However, based on feedback from my client and my lecturer, we decided that the pointy design makes it hard to read, especially from a distance which is important accessibility wise.
colours
For the colours, I based it off the colours within the logo as well as the original colour designs from the senses mood board. It’s the perfect combination of mushrooms, gold accents, the midnight blue and of course the green background. I feel like this colour scheme truly embodies the forest theme that I set out to achieve. I provided the hex codes for both the primary colours and the secondary colours, so that it would be easy for Shaz to use across any future assets.
graphics
These are based off the logo design, and I feel like they encapsulate the theme perfectly! They are to be used on items such as documents and other similar assets.