As a springboard, I'm going to contextualise the surrounding elements of the game that will help to form the logo. enter_universim revolves around a fictitious organisation (currently called DreamWare) creating a simulation, known as the 'Universim', which is a simulated dreamscape that lets people persist beyond death in an artificial afterlife.

The game's dark and gloomy aesthetic and themes are drawn from the malpractice that DreamWare conduct. Unbeknownst to those who sign up, DreamWare actually uses the consciousnesses to develop and advance AI. Unfortunate consciousnesses are subjected to horrific conditions in which their problem solving, creative thinking, and survival mechanisms are tested rigorously.

The game has strong themes of psychology, existentialism, technology, and simulation. I want to look for ways in which I can communicate these through the design of the logo, whether it be through composition, colour, shape or metaphors.

As an initial brief, I want the logo to serve as the face of the Universim as a product. DreamWare is effectively a big tech company, and the logo will represent the Universim as though it was a real service they are offering. The logo needs to represent these major elements:

• Psychology
  • The brain, dreams, mental health etc.
• Existentialism
  • Feelings of being inconsequential, being trapped in something much greater than you, being unable to understand the nature of reality, the struggle to figure out one's purpose.
• Technology
  • Sharp geometry, modern and simple visuals, visual metaphors.
• Simulation

  • Ties into existentialism and technology, but with more emphasis on being contained and questioning one's reality.

    

Research:

To begin the design process, I carried out some research into logo design, looking for key tips and general design practices for the process.

The notes for this research can be found here:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fNUBrXADRCEeyNE59Msf-aSgwzxpegrDgCnv9kvNPyg/edit?usp=sharing

The most helpful parts of this research are:

• Conducting groundwork
  • It's really important to ask a lot of questions about the brand in question and to figure out as much as possible about what it represents, and how to best represent that in written form.
  • Research different approaches, look for commonalities in logos within the same sector.
• Functionality
  • Logos need to work in a variety of contexts. They need to function on a large billboard poster, and be able to scale down to fit a mobile phone screen without compromising any quality.
• Simplicity
  • Modern logos utilise a lot of simple shapes and ideas in order to boost memorability. Overly complex logos take too long to process, leaving detail redundant to conveying an idea. The less time it takes to process and comprehend something, the more immediately memorable it is.
  • This does not mean that a logo should compromise on it's design however, a lot of inferred meaning can come from the right arrangement of shapes.