Double Dragon Broz's logo design challenge
"Everyone Loves Anime"
Who they are: Double Dragon Broz consist of Amenz and Lyc4n, who are YouTubers and Twitch streamers that share a channel together as reactors, gamers, and content creators. Their videos date back to January 2018, and they're currently a small but growing channel of nearly 65,000 followers.
Brief: Design a logo for their new upcoming segment called "Everyone Loves Anime", meant to grow their community, "Fire Nation". From my watching of the video (below) I had a single free day to work.
Though they didn't give much to go off of, and weren't easily reachable for clarification questions, as a personal fan and designer I thought this was a great opportunity to give back to the community while incorporating some of my most recent design inspirations.
My Goal: Make a professional, clean, and versatile design that could accomodate their shifting needs as the seasons of premiering anime change, adapting to what's currently popular while maintaining classical favorites.
At the same time, as much as was applicable with the deadline, create a professional logo presentation that I can utilize and expand upon for future design logo projects.
Notebook brainstorming (left) and later initial sketches (right).
Brainstorming: I began by drawing the first three pictures that came to mind for "everyone", "loves", and "anime". These are baseline iconic images I'm sure many would recognize. The question was how to combine them creatively.
Next, I listed a number of qualities I thought the logo should embody as a professional design, generally, and then as a subject of emotional connection, specifically.
In this digital age where everyone is taking and sharing pictures, the idea of a photo campaign came to mind. Drawing from my experiences living in Japan, I saw locals and tourists alike always posing with hand signs while taking photos.
It got me thinking... Individuals and groups could take photos using one hand sign to share their love of anime — with their favorite anime playing in the background, next to collected memorabilia, or while cosplaying! Imagine people submitting pictures from conventions, shops, movie premieres, and other such anime events. What if there was TikTok dance!?
The concept of bringing people together hand in hand to share their love of anime had me excited at the possibilities, and "heart hands" would serve as a major inspiration.
Logo inspirations gathered on Pinterest.
Thoughts and Inspirations: Deciding how to meld all 3 key elements proved to be a little tricky. A globe was fine enough, but perhaps a bit unoriginal and overused (this is ironic later); I chose to focus on the human element instead. A heart was simple and classic, not to mention key for my aim. However, what to do with anime? Direct anime content runs some copyright risks, and often comes across amateur and tacky in its execution. Not to mention, every anime style is different. Can anime even be embodied by one thing?
I shifted my focus... Referring to the above picture, orange highlights a layout I would seek to emulate while utilizing The Futur's Ben Berns' advice on logo presentations to clients. Green and cyan highlight some designs which use fun and inviting bright colors. Yellow highlights a logo that reminded me of a concept Chris Do did for AJ&Smart; I wanted to further explore that form's capabilities.
I went back to my notebook and drew some sketches. I was still a bit troubled that anime wasn't directly represented, but came to a better headspace after listening to Sagi Haviv's advice. He said that a good logo is "the period of a sentence, not the sentence itself." Essentially, a logo doesn't communicate. It identifies.
This proper understanding of what logos are was helpful for my next steps.
Adobe Illustrator logo creation, play, and refinement
(The original order is labeled, though I bounced around and modified some prior steps).
Creation: Starting in black and white, I created the basic shape and played around with some typefaces. Although I enjoyed the look of the Japanese brush, it communicated Shodo calligraphy, not anime, and wouldn't have complement the logo. I also chose simple but strong colors to represent unique individuals around the world.
By 3) I had gravitated towards a typeface called Seravek Bold and modified it to compliment the roundness in the logo. This is also when I started curving the bottom of the heart, allowing better balance when in a block of four.
In 4) and 5) I used the golden ratio to refine the design. The biggest choice here was the size of the "head." I wanted it to seem unified with the heart and yet still have good negative space for visibility at small sizes.
At 6) and 7) I played with other arrangements and decided on the final lockup. This is also when I started laying out the presentation that's to follow. I would have liked to experiment more with 8) by making some button or sticker mockups, but alas time wasn't with me.
Finally, 9) was the result of reaching out to peers for their thoughts. The first feedback was that the twist in the heart wasn't reading well; the gradient colors were too similar and the opacity overlap made it look busy. Additionally, the eyes were drawn to the red "A" before any other letter. To fix these problems I switched the color order (rainbow color order is often thought to start with red anyway) and simplified the overlap.
The Presentation
Ben Burns advices to reveal the logo simply, black on white, ...
... and then show contrasting examples, side by side.
x/1.309 is a derivative of the golden ratio (traditionally x/1.618).
What do you think!? Leave your thoughts below!
Limiting a presentation to three choices allows a client to reject one without forcing them to choose a winner.
Double Dragon Broz are always wearing hoodies, so creating one was a must, but I also wanted to present to them how the variations could be utilized. They seemed to have loved the wrist bands in particular!
"This man got merch! ... I want that band now!" - Lyc4n "I need that band!" - Amenz
My aim here was for a mood board of sorts while showing how the individual E, L, & A could be used as standalone icons.
Double Dragon Broz often use rock paper scissors to make decisions. I thought it'd be fun to incorporate that in a light hearted manner.
Who doesn't like Memes?
Showing that the logo could be adapted for any style (here just a textured pixelation).
Featuring artwork from Weekly Shonen Jump's 50th Anniversary cover (Volume 3 covering manga from 2000-present day)
Finish with the logo by itself again.
Check out Double Dragon Broz' reactions, other entries (including Lucas's at 35:41), or skip to their decision at 51:34.
The Result: They instantly recognized many of the key qualities I was aiming for and were visibly moved (though I wish they had read the logo's meaning for the viewers and given me a rating like the other entries).
In the time between submission and their review I had continued working. After I saw their review, I added the third to last and penultimate pages and resubmitted it within the day.
The decision was made to let the Fire Nation community vote between two final designs on Double Dragon Broz' Youtube comment section. Lucas and I were the finalists! Unfortunately, it didn't go well.
The Vote: The vast majority of comments were in my favor, but the poll didn't reflect that.
There are various possible reasons for this. First, the pictures and voting were on completely different pages. Additionally, neither post explained the competition to those unfamiliar. The result was two-fold: many people in Fire Nation believed Double Dragon Broz were getting a brand new channel logo (missing the intent of the contest), while others were just pressing “A” to view the results. My largest qualm, however, was when I added an Instagram link to the full presentation due to community interest — it was quickly shadow banned and no longer seen.
Although Double Dragon Broz had mentioned "wanting something custom" when referring to branded anime icons and lettering, I can admit there's a playful feel to Lucas's design that's appealing. He won.
Progress meeting on Zoom with Lyc4n and Lucas (who had no webcam or audio).
The Silver Lining: I learned a great deal from this competition and accomplished my personal goals of making a professional, clean, and versatile design and presentation.
Double Dragon Broz reached out to Lucas and I to award us first and second place. They had settled on Lucas's concept but asked if I could help him by adding my professionalism to complete it, a suggestion shared by the community. As a teacher, I guess I had a soft spot for helping (especially after hearing Lucas's current life situation and future ambition).
However, a few tips and corrections here and there by email became time consuming. Lucas, was giving it all he could but was coming up a tad short. Ultimately, he expressed some concerns regarding his abilities. So, after a meeting online with Lyc4n and Lucas to express the progress thus far and the limits Lucas was running into, it was decided I’d take lead on the project.
(We all wanted what was best, but understandably this was a bit unfortunate for Lucas. He'd been humble and receptive to learn, so I offered to continue teaching him while finishing redesign. He excitedly accepted.)
I was able to negotiate terms for this redesign project with Double Dragon Broz, even discussing future projects I could do for the channel. They're intent on building a strong community, I'm happy to be part of it, and I'm glad we've established a good relationship!
