Category: Services

Blog, Services, Art Direction, Web design + build

UK Games Industry legends the Oliver Twins launch Game Dragons — Vyxl helps out!

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I’m hugely excited for UK Games Industry legends the Oliver Twins on their new consultancy venture. 

After working with them 10 years ago at Blitz Games, it was a real honour to work with them once again to deliver rapid Web Design/Build and Business Card designs, while providing light branding guidance on the way.

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They are “looking forward to talking to developers who are planning to scale up, investors wanting to find the businesses to work with, and brand holders after the perfect development partners.”

Check out their website below and get in touch if you’d like to talk with them.
Best of luck to them both with Game Dragons!

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www.gamedragons.com

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Blog, Gaming, Racing game, Services, User Interface Design

A Quick Look at UI’s in Racing Games (Part 1: 1986—2001)

As a keen fan of Racing Games and a veteran UI Designer, I thought it would be fun to take a quick look at User Interfaces in Racing Games.

And why not? A good excuse to include some colourful screenshots, note some of the details, and get nostalgic too! Click to read more.  Continue reading “A Quick Look at UI’s in Racing Games (Part 1: 1986—2001)” →

Art Direction, Gaming, Services, User Interface Design

Red Dead Redemption II — A Quick Look (At the UI)

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Released today is Rockstars’ sequel to the superb Red Dead Redemption — a Vyxl favourite from way back in 2010. As part of my own work, I regularly save out examples of UI and HUD designs from titles for reference and inspiration.

While RDR and RDR2 appear to have quite ‘minimal’ and unintrusive menu systems, they are anything but simple from a design point of view, and the quality and style achieved by Rockstars’ team is superb overall.

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One standout piece of UI Design are the catalogues the protagonists can peruse at many of the games’ stores —

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Not only do the page designs look period-authentic but the implementation is seamless. Here’s a link to a video showing the catalogue & UI in action —
(if the link doesn’t take you to the correct timestamp, jump to 1:13.45)

 

Below are more screenshots of the games various panels, radial menus and HUD elements (all images clickable for closer viewing) —
Continue reading “Red Dead Redemption II — A Quick Look (At the UI)” →

Blog, Services, Typography

Sans Forgetica — A Typeface that aids information retention

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A multidisciplinary team of designers and researchers from RMIT’s School of Design and its Behavioural Business Lab have designed a font using the principles of cognitive psychology to help students (and learners) better remember study notes.

With years of experience in eLearning methodologies, Chris @ Vyxl has a fascination with ensuring learners – and casual readers alike – retain as much information as possible from the sources we design and present to them.

And there are many tools and tricks: from clean and simple UI; quizlets within learning content to the often-forgotten plain language. 

Typography also plays a significant part to play in content presentation and information absorption, and the results of RMIT’s studies are a fascinating reminder that we can always strive for improvement.

When a piece of information is too easily and cleanly read, it can fail to engage our brains in the kind of deeper cognitive processing necessary for effective retention and recall.

Sans Forgetica is an attempt to address this somewhat ironic flaw of design. By disrupting the flow of individual letterforms, readers are subtly prompted to increase their focus on the text being communicated.

sf2Read more, and get the free Typeface (which includes a PDF story about the project with the download) at Massachusetts Institute of Technology — Sans Forgetica

There’s also a Chrome extension too!

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Art Direction, Blog, Branding and Logo Design, Gaming, Services, User Interface Design

There are too many video games. What now? (Polygon)

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Hard-hitting article over at Polygon about the massive increase in game titles released every year, and the challenges facing smaller teams getting their work noticed.

One of the most eye-opening facts Polygon quote is the number of games on Steam nearly doubled year-on-year from 2014 onwards (1,772 in 2014 upto 7,672 in 2017); which equates to around 16 new titles a day currently. The number of games on Nintendo Switch’s eShop also multiplied by a factor of 5 in just a single year.

In a climate where every game is stuffed to the gills with five tiers of colored loot, massive open worlds, reams of optional content and a dozen content patches lurking on the schedule before the core package even hits store shelves, it seems that game developers are battering each other harder than ever before to compete for the attention of games worldwide — Polygon

Vyxl offers services such as Branding, UI and Graphic Design — that will really help your product stand out. That first impression; whether its’ your app store logo, or your UI, is all-important in engaging your players and customers. Get in touch!
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Take a read of the full article over at Polygon:
There are too many video games. What now?

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Blog, Branding and Logo Design, Services, Typography

New Logo & Identity for Athlete’s Foot Australia

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Really solid work by Re Australia updating not only The Athlete’s Foot logo, but their print/digital identity and store designs.

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Loving the sharper, contemporary look they have achieved which drags what arguably was a pretty middle-of-the-road store brand right up-to date. Certainly; if you’re in the business of selling modern running footwear and apparel, your brand identity needs to reflect that.

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Great work! See/read more at Brand New

Blog, Branding and Logo Design, Gaming, Services, Typography

Vyxl — Rapid brand for Digital Lions

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Vyxl has just completed a rapid one-day brand for Digital Lions; a new UK-based Games Company run by a group of industry veterans.

The branding was created with ‘serious’ and ‘veterans’ as cornerstones of the brand message, and ‘moonlight’ as a brand component which guided the colour palette choice.

As part of this short timescale job; 4K-resolution loading screens for PlayStation4, Xbox One and PC were delivered as well as load screens for leading mobile SKU’s.

Vyxl is looking forward to seeing Digital Lions secure funding for their forthcoming projects in the very near future :)