Escape from Tag World Devlog 5: Logo & Box Art

This time I spent a lot of time working on the next major piece: the box. I went through over 50 logo iterations and multiple tries at the box design itself. It was a long and painful process, but I finally got there! All in all, it took over 10 hours to create the logo and box art as I tried to get past the finish line here.

The first part of working on the box art meant figuring out the logo. I wasn't really happy with how my logo came out in the last post, so I wanted to kind of start over and just do some sketches without trying to find the perfect font. This would help me experiment and be more loose. So I made a few rough sketches for different layouts. I ended up liking some of the rough ones, sometimes with bolder darks. And I still like the idea of incorporating either some kind of tree-like elements or wing/bird features to fit into the Tag World theme. So 2, 3, and 15 felt like the best direction for these below.

Then I got some feedback about including more of the tree leaves and limbs of the tree in it. So I took that and started to add some tree-like features around it like twigs and leaves. Some of these were looking closer, but maybe weren't quite the mood of the game and how Tag World is a bit more friendly.

So after more feedback, I realized I was maybe making them a little too "scary" feeling because of the tree-like shapes. So I tried to do a lot more round and "friendly" designs. I wasn't really happy with the direction or how these were coming out though.

I was getting really stuck at this point, so I just went back to just typed versions to see if that would help. I still wasn't really getting anywhere with these though.

So at that point, I had to take a break because I was hitting a wall again. So I brought back the box art sketch I did previously to try and come up with some designs centered around that sketch to see if I could integrate it a little bit more. I was kind of liking some elements like putting them on the path behind Pidgebeetle (the bird at the top) and the wing-like elements I added. So this helped a little bit. I'm still not quite there, but it's making me think about the design as a whole more.

I kind of liked the integration of the circular shape, so I worked on a few more that would be more stylized and neater. I didn't really like the messy and slanted feeling, so I went with some designs that tried to make it feel a bit more neat and organized.

I tried to tie them back in a little more but keep that wing-like element just on the T and the W more so it could be more focused. I was also trying to get the flow from the original ones while cleaning it up more and making it feel more customized.

So then I combined some of the elements together and made a more finished version using the pen tool and shapes. I'm not sure about the colors still, but it's getting there!

Then I started to flesh out the box design with the original idea with the linkship flying away. It kind of made the logo feel a bit supplementary and the linkship was maybe a bit too prominent though. So I ended up scrapping this idea, regardless of how many hours I put into it.

I decided to make the logo more central to the design and redid some of the background elements. I even decided to scrap the linkship part entirely because it wasn't really coming out how I wanted it to, since I'm just not really a background artist. I made Shelter 128 and the tree in the back a bit more prominent and mostly just kept Pidgebeetle. I tried out a more orange/yellow look instead of the green and yellow to make it stand out from the tree background as well.

Everything was still kind of blending in together too much with it all being 1 color. So I tried to add some blues and greens back in, but just on the tail part. I also got rid of the stroke so it would look more like a background element and make the text pop more.

I decided to make use of the linkship that I spent time drawing on the bottom of the box. Since the bottom of the box is rarely seen anyway, I wasn't too worried about it being prominent on there quite as much. I did a few iterations though and ended up with one that had a Link Between Worlds background.

Because I finished the logo, I also came back to the card backs. One of these is for the cards that cost Birdians and the other is for the Linkship Pilots that cost Points. I went through a few iterations on this one as well.

I started with the original background I had, but the colors weren't quite working and neither were the textures. So I tried integrating the leaves into the center and adding a wood texture around the outside.

I wasn't really sure on the green colored one, so I also tried a design where I added leaves from the score board to make it more obvious what the texture was meant to represent.

Then I came back to the cover and made a few sketches to rethink the background elements. I still really wanted Shelter 128 to be in it because of how central that is to Tag World, so it's in both of these sketches to some degree.

I wasn't really sure if it fully represented the setting of Tag World, so I revisited my previous design and played around with adding more depth. I changed the size of some of the elements and added more little details to help it feel less empty.

I came back to the card backs and started over. I looked at some inspiration from board games I have to see how they structured those. I was realizing a lot of them didn't actually have the name of the game/the logo on them, and that was a big inspiration for how I decided to take these next.

I tried a few ideas like adding leaves or textures in, but keeping the name of the deck instead. For the non-Linkship Pilot deck, I wasn't sure if I wanted it to be Shelter or Crew Member at first.

Then I simplified more. Basic colors and gradients. I'm not sure if it looks too plain though. I started with just the Linkship Pilot deck and figured I would transfer it over to the other deck after figuring out the design.

Then I went back to my inspirations and wanted to really add something that would make this unique instead of just a solid color. So I added a box and the Linkship Pilot symbol to make it more clear which deck this was, and to customize it a little more. I liked how this came out, so I also translated it over to the Crew Members. I also added the Group symbols to make that one more unique as well.

And with that, I officially sent it off for the first printing! By my next post, I'll have my first printed version so I can make any tweaks or print the final version.