The Quest for the Warhorse Logo

[Anzious]

I do a bit of Logo design in my spare time, and despite my enthusiasm about Warhorse and Kingdom Come, I couldn’t help but feel a bit disappointed in the Warhorse Logo. This is why I set out on a quest to find an alternative.

I - Analyzing the Warhorse Logo

Just for the record, this is the Logo in question:

A quick rundown of my critique of this logo:

1. Inconsistent level of detail
2. Crammed space in the lower region
3. High level of detail in certain areas
4. Unrepresented subject
5. Unclear definitions of motives

1. Inconsistent level of detail
What I mean by this, is that the logo does not carry the same level of detail everywhere, which causes an imbalance in the saturation of information. Since it is not an explicitly marked difference, we perceive it as a single motive, which upsets our feeling of balance.
I refer to the difference between the sizes of the W and the H.

2. Crammed space in the lower region
In the lower region, there is not a lot of space between borders of different shapes, which means the eye doesn’t really have a “resting place”. It becomes claustrophobic, and can be compared to the feeling of being seated too close to a wall.

3. High level of detail in certain areas
When making a logo, it is important, that it’s easily deciphered, even when it’s very small. This means that details should be avoided, as they are unreadable, when the logo is scaled down.

4. Unrepresented subject
There isn’t really a lot in this logo, that makes the reader think about a warhorse. This is not really a flaw, and it is not at all essential in a logo.

5. Unclear definitions of motives
It is important that a reader can quickly decipher a logo. Since the W and the H do not have clear cut borders, it takes just a bit more effort to decrypt the message. The mind perceives W and H as a single shape.

II - Ideas

So I started to brainstorm ideas for a new design for a warhorse logo.
I really liked the idea of a logo on a shield, so I played a bit with different shield types and coats of arms.

But I wasn’t satisfied at all. This suffers from some of the same problems, as the original. The letters are not very readable, and are very hard to read on a small scale.

My next idea was to make something of the warHORSE

This one suffers from being too thin. It’s again hard to make out on a distance. There’s also the problem, that it’s very wide, which makes it impractical.

I then decided to try with a more modern standard approach, very minimalistic.

It is obvious how hard it is to join W and H in a logo here. Since W and H don’t really share any features, it’s hard to connect them to each other. This is also a very boring logo.

I decided to go back to the idea of a shield

Here I tried to stay true to the original logo, but changing the shape of the shield, to be a little more definitive.

I got the idea of integrating a knight chess piece, since it represents “game”, “horse” and “war” at the same time.

Here, there is a miscommunication between shapes, though. The bottom of the chess piece doesn’t harmonize with shape of the shield. The chess piece also leads the reader to think of strategy, which isn’t the point here.

My last idea was to try with some symbolism

This one needs to be refined… a lot.

III. Inspiration

While working on these concepts, I did a lot of looking around, and got a couple of ideas I wasn’t able to convert into minimalist logo-form.

Wax seal:

Horse armor:

I also found this logo, which I thought was absolutely perfect for Warhorse

IV - Conclusion

So here I am. I have found that creating a logo communicating “War” “Horse” and “Gaming” is fairly hard. I have a bunch of Ideas, but can’t make them fit. Will you join me in the quest for the Warhorse logo?

[213]

nice effort. but to be fair, it’s game studio, not fashion company

[Earl_Thorn]

Some nice ideas there @Anzious… shame you couldn’t get anything fully cohesive, but I like your track of thinking. Not sure how receptive the WH guys are going to be towards a logo re-design for their studio though, but a good discussion point never the less.

I personally think the shield is a key design element, so any hypothetical logo re-design should incorporate that. I also really liked where you were going with the chess piece idea. Fleshing that out a little bit further, you could be onto something that works really well.

Maybe not a chess piece exactly, but the side profile horse logo works for me… the only disconnect is as you say the straight lines of the bottom of the piece itself, which conflict with the curvature of the bottom of the shield.

I’d definitely be interested to see what else you can come up with though. You might even want to try playing around with some font elements too, to see how they fit / or don’t fit into the overall design.

Nice one

[Dekssan]

I found this, in my opinion this is how the war horse logo should looks like

[Komatanz]

As you might have seen in your quite thoughtful effort, defining an emblem for a company is no easy task at hand. Definitions of a “good” and a “bad” logo certainly vary in taste and regional common ideas.

Some say, a companies logo should be kept simple, some say it should show the company’s ‘metier’…
Most agree with the definition of recognition, readability (if it is not just a picture as logo) and (if possible) uniqueness.
SImplicity of a company’s logo is good thing if you plan on quick usability and minor changes (e. g. in size) which won’t go too far from resemblance to its original. Also simple logos are much easier to be converted to vector graphics, which are have (in my opinion) a far better use than image or picture files like .jpg/.png/ etc.

Although the actual logo of the WarHorses does not define the company’s doings, it is quite fine as it is, for the logo doesn’t nailthe WH to a specific topic, like “gaming”, however.
Also, nowadays, it is not just a pictured symbol of a company, but more often a combination of letters/writing and pictures/symbols, similar to the one on the following picture (taken from the studio’s website):

Although, yopur quest seem to have failed, I would like to give it another direction: How would the WarHorses’ logo look like as a medieval emblem, or crest?

Your suggestion here was a neat thing to start with, in this case:

Darnit… my fingers itch for some Illustrator’s work again…

[Senseless]

[quote=Earl_Thorn]I personally think the shield is a key design element, so any hypothetical logo re-design should incorporate that. I also really liked where you were going with the chess piece idea. Fleshing that out a little bit further, you could be onto something that works really well.

Maybe not a chess piece exactly, but the side profile horse logo works for me… the only disconnect is as you say the straight lines of the bottom of the piece itself, which conflict with the curvature of the bottom of the shield.[/quote]

So why not merge them?

I don’t know why exactly, but when I see the H in that font you used on your upper two attempts @Anzious, I immediately think of Hooligans, no offense.

[MadSmejki]

@Anzious

Here, there is a miscommunication between shapes, though. The bottom of the chess piece doesn’t harmonize with shape of the shield.

BTW you could play with this type of shield which is connected to our game thematically (it’s a Hussite shield, and story of our game points to these future events)

[Komatanz]

Possibly because them hools like to use black letter/Gothic type(s) as fonts.

[Flashfire]

The existing logo makes me think a bit of a castle (the W) and gates (the H). Maybe that’s what Warhorse was going for?

Even though the attempted redesigns are a solid effort, I think before just openly criticizing their logo and saying “Here are my ideas instead” without being asked for them, it would have been better to contact them privately and ask a few questions about the logo first. I don’t see any mention of having done that.

For all we know they might like their logo the way it is, opting for something simplistic. Or, they might decide they do like one of yours. On the other hand, they may see it as presumptuous on your part. You’ve put a lot of thought into this, at the least, but it’s very possible it’s misplaced.