This was originally posted on my now-defunct creative blog.
rfbytes was a little project I had going for a while, where I tried my hand at developing apps and games for Windows Phone 7. I needed to create a logo for the endevour, something that would look good both on the splash introduction screen of the apps and games, and also atop the development and support forum. And as I wanted the logo to reflect my roots in 8-bit computing – the pixels had to be big and bold.
I was initially inspired by the colours available on the old ZX Spectrum. I initially toyed with the idea of going down the Spectrum route totally and using the old system font, but I felt I had more to offer this project than merely blowing up some pre-created letters and calling it finished. I wanted pixels and it had to have the RF! graphic in there somehow, so there was only one way to go – a unique blocky font. I find pixels both satisfying to work with, and aesthetically pleasing. The Random Fury! logo, which I designed way back in 2004, is basically a collection of large pixels in the shape of an “r”, an “f”, and an exclamation mark. The exclamation mark was intended to add a bit of punch. When people see the phrase “Random Fury!”, they tend to read it in their heads in a different way, which makes it more memorable.
As you can see from my work in progress image just to the left there, I went through many iterations before I settled on the final design. Tweaks here and there to the actual size and shape of each letter, based on factors such as how they looked compared to the other letters (I wanted all the letters to look as if they were part of the same font-set), how much space they took up, and how much space they allowed me for extra flourishes. And what about flourishes? Do I put small squares above the words? Small squares below the words? Coloured squares instead of black ones? I settled on rectangles above and to the right.
I wanted a Windows Phone 7 style circle in the logo somewhere, to add cohesion, but I just could not get the RF! graphic to look good inside the pixellated circle. It would either look lop-sided (mostly due to the fact that it is quite a lop-sided logo), or force the circle to become bigger, and ruin the delicate balance between it and the words. In the end, I dropped the exclamation mark and simplified it down to a lower case “r” and an upper case “f”. This enabled it to fit in the circle better, and it made more sense overall, as it was “rfbytes”, not “rf!bytes”.
Here is the final design in black-on-white and white-on-black.
Note the alternate colours of the rectangles compared to the large image at the top. If taken to fruition, I would ideally have liked the four rectangles to scroll through a series of 8-bit colours.
What do you think of this? Love it? Or hate it? Please feel free to leave a comment.
