Having had the pleasure of knowing Karl for some time, we discussed our ambitions for the future and it was clear that streaming games was a strong passion of Karl's and he aimed to do it more often.

His channel had a logo put together with the assistance of another friend of his however, he was looking to improve the quality and maybe change the style all together. It was clear the Logo needed to be sharper as the original was in a JPEG format, after resizing the image for his channel it was visibly stretched.

Taking his original sketch and notes from our chat, I started creating concepts that would accommodate his channel with options to expand the content with little editing required in the future.

I hope you enjoy the journey!

Karl by the time of our discussion had already put a lot of work into his channel, having a loyal fanbase that followed him to Facebook when Mixer was shut down and his interaction with those watching was well managed.

It was time to stand out amongst the rest.

His original design of the bear was made to look more like a stuffed teddy. I made some attempts to revisit this idea and develop a more playful and goofy design. Not concerned by the design of his Gamer Tag at this point, I focused on just the head as an icon image.

From the sketch I thought the logo had potential, so moved over to Adobe Illustrator to flush out the design. During the editing stages, it was concluded the ears where too long for the design but, although we liked the concept, we felt it would not suit the audience he was aiming to capture.

As a mature gamer he wanted something that projected skill and an attention to detail.

It was clear that the initial design would needed a rethink and possibly the removal of it being a stuffed animal. Taking on his feedback I went to do more research before designing a new concept.

Taking a couple of days out to rethink the layout of the design, I chose to incorporate a border that would limit the size of the bear. I wanted others to visibly notice it was in a straight jacket without needing to include the full body. By doing this, I hoped to design a concept that had detail but, did not sacrifice the attention of those watching.

When building the Logo I tackled it in parts, starting with the head. This was originally in brown before changing it to a red at Karl's request. As the parts built over the bear where made up with transparent shapes, once the base colour was changed the entire image would be altered. This made changing colours later a much quicker process.

With the head created I moved onto developing the Gamer Tag. Taking the standard Arial Bold font, I stretched its height, and applying a slight italic tilt. Entering into the shape and manipulating its vectors, I managed to produce a design that held its thickness for visibility while dropping of into sharp edges. Applying Borders around the outside of the text I used the Pen tool to introduce red shadows and highlights.

Although both of us where happy with the design I felt we would benefit for simplifying it. As the design was in colour, it held a lot of detail that could be an issue later if needed for other purposes. I proceeded to make a positive and negative (P&N) variant. Trying to reduce the detail I aimed to capture areas that cast shadows.

Due to the size of the bears head and the fact this is made in vector, having a gradual drop off into the Gamer Tag was not going to work. Looking back at the original design, the arms where bound around the sides. If done this way it would not be clear and look as if the bear was sporting a white top. It was due to this the idea of having the arms bound over the shoulders was done instead.

The next issue was attempting to display this without it looking like something else. When drafting, it looked like the bear was sporting a dress with a large cleavage. Simply designing it as if the sleeves where bound behind him would not work and as a result I included more belts that bind the arms at the front. This resolved the problem as well as filling out the otherwise large white void.

Now with the remaining parts to the bear complete, it was time to extend the P&N design. Removing unnecessary detail and simplifying the Logo. This highlighted parts of the bear and allowed me to pick out some key features.

With the bear created it was time to add some battle scares to the design. I chose a simple 'X' scare to test the overall look and was impressed with how well it took shape. I proceeded to created the design on both colour and P&N variants.

After sending this to Karl for a review, he was really happy with the design and became his favourite.

Although the design was something we where both happy with, I wanted to put more thought into the the scars that went across the bears face. Getting them to stick out and be more akin to a scratch, it was due to this I went with 3 scares that span the side of his face and one catching the tip of his nose.

As Karl is a skilled player, I wanted the mark to be left in such a way that it implies intent to damage the eye. A mark left by a player bearing great enough skill to have once left a defining feature throughout his many years gaming.

Editing the P&N logo to the colour of his choice the Logo bellow is his current design as of 28th December 2020.

I hope to see Karl gaming for many years to come and this Logo to be with him throughout his online journey.

All the best with your stream!