While I’d love to be at PAX Aus this year, I’m incredibly proud that 3 x Game Titles which have employed Vyxl services in the last few months are currently showcasing at the Melbourne event. If you’re there, check them out! Read on to see more. Continue reading “Vyxl work at PAX Aus, Melbourne Oct 11-13”
Category: Services
Vyxl is extremely proud to have been involved with this exciting title — a forthcoming ‘post-apocalyptic RPG’ set in the Australian Outback, targeted for release in 2021 on Steam (PC), PS4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch — by developing the master Logotypes and Style Guide for the project. Continue reading “Vyxl Branding for upcoming post-apocalyptic RPG Game ‘Broken Roads’”
Very nice overview at the state of play with VR + AR technologies from Game Industry legend Andrew Oliver, one half of The Oliver Twins, co-founder of Game Dragons and Vyxl client. Andrew discusses how far we’ve come, where we are now, and what excites him about the future of these technologies. A great read!
Seven years on from Oculus Rift’s launch, how far have we come? (GamesIndustry.Biz)
Vyxl offers Design services for VR and AR, and has recently undertaken projects across both technologies. Get in touch now, to see how Vyxl can elevate your Product, Game, App, I.P., Service or Event!
There’s something about the Firefox brand that evokes a warm and positive feeling which rival brands in the same tech space (no I’m not naming them) would dearly dream of. I speak for myself of course and with the likes of Googles’ Material Design highly regarded, it’s clearly a highly competitive – and emotive – area of the tech industry, particularly when platform-favourite Browser and Cloud Services are involved.
I briefly noted the previous round of Firefox visual updates here on Vyxl back in late 2017, and evolution not revolution appears to be the mantra again with Mozilla (sorry, Moz://a) with this June 2019 update.
The biggest reveal here is the new Firefox parent brand, which can be seen in the masthead image above, and sat top of the logo group below—
Now, don’t panic!… the Fox has not been lost, as she (or indeed he) now represents the Browser platform specifically, with abstracted iconography such as a magnifying glass, human silhouette and… that cloud/umbrella icon representing Moz://as other services.
At first I felt the cloud/umbrella should have a reversed arrow pointing up into ‘the cloud’. But hey, you can send out of the cloud, so fair enough ;-)
Whether you feel the Fox has further lost her/his personality is more of a conversation starter (at the kind of parties I never get invited to) but certainly the fox has lost its paw, which may evoke a certain sadness for some of us, but undoubtedly will have been for more practical reasons such as scaling within digital mediums (a quick recap of the prior logos is shown below)
Where I’m less comfortable with the brand evolution results is how close they get to the Googles Material Design feel with a set of rather mixed result illustrations, and I can’t help feeling these were somewhat rushed —
Finally, Moz://a appear to have omitted (or simply forgotten) other products/projects such as Pocket, WebThings, Hubs, Firefox Reality, Common Voice from their rebrand announcement.
While I like some elements of the rebrand, I can’t help feeling a few corners have been cut here. I couldn’t imagine Google doing that.
Vyxl offers Branding, Logo Design and Iconography among a host of other Design services. Get in touch now, to see how Vyxl can elevate your Product, Game, App, I.P., Service or Event!
Fantastic video for a fantastic event — the Retro Rides Weekender 2019 Official Video. Vyxl is honoured to have helped out with Graphic and Collateral Design for this event, which appears to have been a huge success. Well worth a watch if you love retro cars of any size, shape or finish!
Incredibly excited that a title I’ve been working on in secret for a few months, was announced yesterday. Automobilista (motorist in Portuguese) is a highly-regarded Sim Racing series developed by Brazilian-based Reiza Studios.
Vyxl has delivered new logotypes for the title —aka AMS2— and is working on the UI for the late-2019 launch (with some world-first design concepts, to be announced in due course).
Below you can see the logotypes, heavily inspired by (and fixing issues with) the original logo, shown bottom. Vyxl wanted to deliver a highly polished, highly recognisable motorsport-inspired identity, with the need to encapsulate the titles’ 14 characters within a recognisable silhouette for maximum readability wherever used. The master logotype even retains a horizon line, inspired by its’ predecessor. The acronym and social media badge/icons provide further flexibility for the brands’ applications across Social Media, Print and within Digital realms.
Original title logo for reference —
Reiza have created an announcement teaser featuring some of the titles new features (such as a new graphics engine including weather and day/night cycles) and of course Vyxl’s AMS2 logo design. Check it out —
Great work from all the team at Reiza, to say I’m very excited for this title would be a massive understatement!
Reiza Studios — Website
Reiza Studios — Facebook page
Reiza Studios — YouTube Channel
Always nice seeing real-world results of computer-based design work! Both the client — and Vyxl — are really pleased with the results.
Good luck to David at Retro Rides for his forthcoming event at Goodwood Circuit in the UK.
Hit the link below to snaffle any last-minute tickets (if any remain) where the T-Shirts will be on sale exclusively.
Retro Rides Weekender — Web Store
Retro Rides Weekender — Facebook Page
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.
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!
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 (1986—2001)”
Vyxl was recently involved in a rebrand for the 22nd Century Racing Series (’22RS’) racing game title currently in development at GOATi Entertainment in Melbourne, Australia.
Read on to see the development work that went into this. Continue reading “Vyxl Logo Design for 22RS”
Vyxl is immensely proud to be involved with the second Retro Rides Weekender, following the success of their 2018 event held at the legendary Goodwood racing circuit in the UK.
Continue reading “Vyxl — Branding Design for Retro Rides Weekender 2019”
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.
One standout piece of UI Design are the catalogues the protagonists can peruse at many of the games’ stores —
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)”
I’m always surprised by some key factors that are overlooked in Racing Game UI design. Here’s a few thoughts.
Continue reading “Designing a UI for Racing Games? Here’s 5 tips.”
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.
Read 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!
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!
Take a read of the full article over at Polygon:
There are too many video games. What now?
Really solid work by Re Australia updating not only The Athlete’s Foot logo, but their print/digital identity and store designs.
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.
Great work! See/read more at Brand New
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 :)
Vyxl is proud to have been involved in the Branding and Marketing collateral Design for the upcoming Retro Rides 2018 Weekender; a classic car event run in the UK by a long-time friend. Click to see more. Continue reading “Vyxl — Branding & Collateral Design: Retro Rides 2018 Weekender”
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