I freaking love Evolve's new logo. Evolve is a sci-fi co-op first-person shooter due for release sometime in 2014. And although I know less than nothing about games, I know what I like. And I like this logo.
Wait. Didn't I just say that?
I caught a glimpse of this little piece of work from Kotaku's post on my feed. "The Best Video Game Logo in a Long Time," it read. Oh, really? I decided to investigate further. Needless to say, I was more than disappointed to see a poorly constructed, measly excuse of a paragraph under the image. "The game this logo is for is multiplayer." Seriously? That's how you're going to start out? Read that shit out loud, Stephen Totilo. Don't forget to detangle your tongue afterwards. I mean, what the freaking fuck.
Here's why I think this logo works:
Simplicity: You can usually spot a logo that's trying too hard. In most cases, it's a logo that doesn't look like it's trying at all. Logos with too much flash and too little to say are usually pretty to look at, but why put your brand out there for consumers to mentally hit it and quit it? The most successful logos say as much as they can without the extra fluff. It's like budgeting for a Super Bowl commercial spot. Businesses are racking up millions of dollars to get an all-too-brief moment in the spotlight. And for what? To expose their brand, to evoke an emotional response, to be remembered, and to sell. Pick one. It's most likely all of those reasons. And you want to cram all of this into a mere thirty seconds, risking to be overlooked as your commercial plays during bathroom breaks and beer runs? Although this was more of a tangent than sin/cos ever will be, the point is to make EVERYTHING count or mean something. A logo is no exception.
Concept: Evolve's logo is pretty high up there in concept. It is virtually a representation/explanation of the game's premise. I mean, come on. That's freaking awesome. Most script readers roll their eyes aspiring screenwriters who can't sum up their movie in a sentence or two. This logo practically sets up the play arena by existing.
Negative Space: The colored shapes enclosing the letters leaves room to play with negative space. The red orange squares personify the letters as units, or in this case, individual players. The black background, or negative space, double up to separate these units.
Multi-Functional: Let's keep in mind that the game is a multiplayer with four players pitted against the fifth, who happens to be a giant monster with abilities that equate to the others. The second V in the word floats in the black abyss of a background to represent "versus", or used to frequent as "VS". It's set to not only divide the two parties, but can also be interpreted as the roman numeral for 5. How many players are in this game, again? The letters EVOL each reside in their own designated squares, each representing a player. The trailing bar following the last letter has the same length as the four preceding red orange squares do when they are stacked next to each other. This makes complete sense - four players versus the fifth, with the fifth exerting just as much power as the other four. You can also say that the giant monster (last letter E) evolved into the strength of its opposition, with the way the colored bar behind this E is elongated or warped to match the length of the others.
This isn't ground breaking news. This logo is fun to pick apart for those who understand, and still easy on the eyes for those don't. All of these are just my observations, but they're not just mine. I really appreciate how something so simple can be so effective...all because a little more thought was put into it.
