Restricting The Game

After having some trouble designing the game graphics to a level where I was happy with them I decided to experiment and add some rules for myself. I thought if I added some boundaries for myself to stay in I would be able to design something that was more simple than my previous artwork but was also much more stronger visually.  

The rules that I decided to stick too was -

• The use of only 4 colours - Black, dark grey, light grey, green
• No backgrounds

Whilst being simple things I found it a lot easier to create my artwork following these two rules, the four colours all mix together well and with the use of strokes in the artwork I think the colour scheme is actually quite strong and each of the elements has it's own colour code. For example the users weapon and controls are all coloured in light grey with a stroke of green whilst the enemy are dark grey with a stroke of black. This broke up the different parts of the game like I mentioned but also because the colours all work well together these different elements come together and do not look disjointed or out of place. 

Using no backgrounds also gave me one less thing to worry about, in my previous attempts and the game artwork or even the game ideas I found myself thinking what sort of background I need to use and how detailed it should be. The idea of no backgrounds free'd me in a way as it meant I could draw all of the other elements in the same way without thinking about how detailed the background needed to be or what perspective it needed to be in. In the end I actually think having no background works well and is not too simple or out of place, and whilst the game may have looked better with one i'm happy with the result form sticking to the two rules I had set out. 

This method of restricting myself really helped me push on with the designing of my game which I had been stuck on for some time. It is an idea I will look to use in the future if I am in a similar situation. 

Adding More Features / Slight Change of Idea

I've decided that I need to add more features to my app as i'm not confident about designing one of the games that I have suggested in a way that fits in with the rest of the visual style on the app. This is not to say that I have completely changed my idea but I feel it is needed as designing the graphics for the game is harder than I first thought. With a few other features if the game is not strong the whole project will not be a complete disaster with other features to fall back on.

After looking through the jamesons website again a taking a closer look at the contents I decided to use the sections on recipes and how they make jamesons as the extra content on my app. I already have some idea on ways that I want to use/display the information.

Idea/Proposal

My proposal for the jamesons app is too create a game based of off their existing tall tales ad campaigns. The adverts which I have covered in an earlier post show John Jameson rescuing his whiskey from a four different predicaments, this gave me the idea to recreate these situations as addictive little games that whilst will not be over complicated will hopefully draw users in. I plan to stay true the jamesons brand and use there colour scheme and a typography similar to there which I have been through in earlier posts. 

I think this app idea will work as it keeps with the brand and builds on an already successful ad campaign, which with it's popularity amongst the jamesons customer will hopefully make the app a popular with them. 

Wireframes

Before I pitch my ideas to the class I made some very basic wireframes of how I am planning some of my app screen to look at this moment in time. I think however that these are likely to change depending on how the artwork goes once I have started to make it.

These wire frames being the general idea for most of the app I have however thought more about using nav menues at the top of the page. The white on the wireframes will be a background for the menues this will be a green gradient popular in the jamesons brand. 

Colours

For the colours I decided to stick to the brand a much a possible as it keeps the theme with the brand, this would give me a nice range of colours to use and also keep the bulk of my design in the elegant green gradients that jamesons use throughout there website/brand.

Typography

After doing some research I discovered that the main font used by jamesons whiskey is actually a font called jamesons which I was unable to find. However after looking for similar fonts and others that I thought suited the brand I have decided to use 'garabond' as the main type face for my project. It has a vintage look which is similar to the jamesons font itself, this look also gives the feel that it comes from the 1700/1800's around the time jamesons was established. 

So I very much thought that it suited the brand and as well as being able to be used on it's own the type face also looks right when used on images that feature the actual company font which is a big positive as I had plans to use the bottles and barrel as part of my artwork. 

Overall I think this font will work well for headers and short amount of text, I may however look for a less stylised/retro font for some of the text on the app particularly if it is long. I'm not sure what fonts what fonts will work for this purpose yet, but again I want to find something that I think suits the brand and does not look out of place when it all comes together. 

Chosen Brand

For my brand I decided that Jameson's whiskey was the brand that I wanted to go with, I chose jameson's over the other brands for a number of reasons. The two main reasons being that they have a unique ad campaign which is very popular amongst customers and has also won awards. The live action adverts which I have covered in another post really drew me in and I think that I could use these in my ideas for the jamesons app. 

The second big reason that I decided to go with jamesons is the history of the brand, the website talks a lot abut being a family brand and how John Jameson the founder and owner was one of the workers and had a personal connection with each of them e.g. through the use of a nickname for each worker. These types of stories and info on the website really bring out the family feel the brand wants that all the workers love working there and make the whiskey with passion, as well as this it really shows you how the brand want you to see john jameson as a unique boss who everyone liked. 

Overall I think the brand has a strong existing campaign and a history that I will be able to use to my advantage to make an app that really suits the brand.