Actual chocolate for Choco Doom icon ;)

[SoDOOManiac]

I suppose some players ask: "Where the hell is the chocolate on Choco Doom icon? XD" Here's my approach to answer this question:

Based on this http://www.godivachocolates.co.uk/dark-chocolate-pink-himalayan-salt-tablet-g-by-godiva/73219.html?cgid=C370

[munday1]

Are you sure that the license of the image is compatible as the license of choco's icon?

[fabiangreffrath]

Not even bad, I like the concept! And it's probably even easier to apply to the Heretic icon that @JNechaevsky proposed in https://github.com/chocolate-doom/chocolate-doom/issues/965

[SoDOOManiac]

@munday1 I'm not good at Photoshop so I used this image just to demonstrate the concept. I think it will be OK from the licensing point of view if @JNechaevsky or someone else with graphical design skills draws a square chocolate tablet like this from scratch (the dimensions are to be 650x650). BTW, I cut out the Doom D and the spanner as well for the use in the final version.

[JNechaevsky]

Since we are talking about Chocolate Doom and not a Crispy Doom, I think before taking any actions we should hear the word from @fragglet.

Issue #965 is still on hold and nobody seems to be interested, so I doubt that it worth to take any actions there at all.

[SoDOOManiac]

P.S. In case of drawing the choco tablet from scratch, there's no need to break off the corner, let it be just 4x4 square :)

[fragglet]

Yep, that's a copyrighted image, so it's not an option, I'm afraid.

I'm not necessarily opposed to the concept, and I'd really like to see a new logo for Chocolate Doom. Some suggestions:

• Something in SVG format is best for a logo, so that it's scalable.
• Would be good if it used a maximum of ~4 colors, so that we can print stickers (something I've always wanted to do)
• Should scale down well - remember it's usually used as an icon

[SoDOOManiac]

@fragglet

Would be good if it used a maximum of ~4 colors, so that we can print stickers (something I've always wanted to do)

Attracting new players by stickers on surfaces IRL...I'm really fascinated to find out how effective it will be ;) If you like the concept, the chocolate background like this can be drawn from scratch to avoid copyright issues.

[fragglet]

If we can make good quality stickers then I'd be happy to print and ship them to people for free out of my own pocket.

General concept seems alright though I wonder if we can do better. For example the "D" in the current logo is something I drew myself by hand and is rather crude. What other ways are there of representing "Doom"?

By the way, the current icon sources are here: https://github.com/chocolate-doom/icon

[linguica]

The simplest and most easily recognizable way to depict chocolate is probably either a single square broken off a chocolate bar, or else a roundish bonbon.

As for the "Doom" port, I think a stylized "D" is a good choice to remain, since it's obvious that D is for Doom, and the stylized nature evokes the universally recognized Doom logo.

My suggestion would be a single chocolate-bar square (with a 4x3 aspect ratio of course) with an embossed stylized-D design on the top. This could probably even be made into a single-color logo for maximum flexibility.

[fragglet]

All great ideas - I particularly like the aspect ratio suggestion, with "squares" of chocolate 20% taller than they are wide :) The embossing idea is nice but some color variation would also be good - plain brown doesn't make for a great look. Always remember the squint test - does it look distinctive and recognizable even if you squint your eyes so it's a blur?

There are some SVG chocolate bar icons on Wikimedia Commons which might make for a starting point (they're CC licensed but maybe this is okay?). I suspect the best idea would be to start with something very simple (eg. black and white) and add color, rather than the other way round.

[leilei-]

I always thought it could be a Doom-shaded bowl (yellow/blue)/Heretic-shaded bowl (Mint/grey), Hexen shaded bowl (brown/red), Strife-shaded bowl (gold), or Chex-shaded (white, but with a glass of milk and plate of toast) with chocolate ice cream scoops in it could work while avoiding direct trademark logo references.

[SoDOOManiac]

@leilei- I would take your idea further to a square chocolate tablet with the partly torn off wrapper of the color combinations you mentioned.

[fabiangreffrath]

I absolutely like the idea of a chocolate bar (with 1.2 aspect ratio!) wrapped in colored paper which represents the actual game. Especially, because this idea is so tempting to transfer to colored bags of crisps. ;)

[SoDOOManiac]

1.2 because it is the aspect ratio of one pixel?

[jmtd]

The original doom logo has a bricks motif internally. Chocolate bar blocks reminds me of that

[SoDOOManiac]

Eating some square chocolate-covered cookies inspired me to take a photo of them to use for the icons ;)

[AXDOOMER]

@Zodomaniac This cookie icon looks great, but I'm not sure it will look as good when it will be scaled down.

[SoDOOManiac]

@AXDOOMER For Crispy the scaled-down icons were made nice by @JNechaevsky

[fabiangreffrath]

I am afraid that, when scaled down to, say, 32x32, the square brown background will begin to look like something you most definitely would not want to eat.

[SoDOOManiac]

@fabiangreffrath then maybe a blocky strictly square chocolate would do, like one in the starting post? or will it still be what you described when scaled down?

[fabiangreffrath]

With "strictly square" you mean 1.2 aspect ratio, right? :grin:

Seriously, I like the image in the starting post, but it would need to be created from scratch in a scalable format, i.e. SVG. I cannot say how this will look like when scaled, down, though, how should I?

On the other hand, I found the idea of a 1.2 aspect ratio chocolate bar wrapped in Doom-colored paper the most appealing idea so far!

[SoDOOManiac]

@fabiangreffrath why 1.2 aspect ratio? For the reason it's the aspect ratio correction multiplier? With strictly square I meant Ritter Sport, so that the chocolate background covers the whole icon area, but if you wish 1.2 aspect ratio, here you are: the Googled preview of a stock image seems good enough for an icon! These are 256x256. UPD: some subtle edits

[fabiangreffrath]

I can only speak for myself, but I am beginning to really like this new concept!

Some remarks and ideas:

• Where is the chocolate bar image taken from?
• It already shows some blur around the edges and needs to be redone as a SVG image.
• Could you change the tear line of the paper wrap so that it goes a bit diagonal and only reveals the area of about 1.5 to 2 chocolate bits?
• Could you please remove the "D" icon and instead apply the color gradient to the paper wrap?

[SoDOOManiac]

@fabiangreffrath I'll address your questions one by one:

1. It's from https://www.shutterstock.com/image-vector/vector-set-two-illustrations-unpacked-realistic-1297604194, one has to pay for the vector version so I just used a preview. Here are all the similar images: https://www.shutterstock.com/search/similar/1297604194
2. SVG-ing and redrawing is something beyond my zero 'madskillz'.
3. Same as 2.
4. IMO the D icon should still be present as the color gradient itself associates with Doom to the oldest player base only.

[SoDOOManiac]

And let me throw in another concept. Its blockiness is likely to prevent its digestion while downscaling ;)

[JNechaevsky]

Something like this, probably.

[JNechaevsky]

...there is a one little big problem - I don't know how to create an vector-based image, I have almost no experience in Adobe Illustrator. Maybe it's no a problem, if we are okay to proceed with only raster-based icons.

Anyways, creating an icon from mockup above is pretty simple, just requires some time and tuning. There is also no need for having 3rd party GFX, everything can be done via colors and color gradients.

For now, I have only two important questions:

1. Is everyone in the crew okay about such icon?
2. It there a list of all necessary sizes for PNG icons (256x256, 128x128 and so on)?

[fabiangreffrath]

I have almost no experience in Adobe Illustrator.

Inkscape is available as a free alternative. I have used it in the past to create icons for the rott, wolf4sdl and prboom-plus Debian packages. But these were on a "still better than nothing" artistic level. There are lots of tutorials for Inkscape available online, though.

1. Is everyone in the crew okay about such icon?

You've got :+1: from me. But even if the other developers agree, there is still no guarantee that this will definitely be the new icon set.

2. It there a list of all necessary sizes for PNG icons (256x256, 128x128 and so on)?

I am afraid there is only one: scalable SVG. Any other icon size can be created from that.

[fragglet]

I like the general approach here. A few thoughts:

• I'd probably be in favour of going with three columns of chocolate squares rather than four (we support Chex Quest as well, so four isn't quite accurate anyway).
• Brighter colour on the wrapping to give some contrast with the darker chocolate?
• Vector graphics are better - photographs don't make for good logos.
• Making sure it looks at least mostly recognizable at 32x32 is crucial I think. The "squint test" is a good thing to try: load up the image in the Gimp and apply a heavy gaussian blur - can you still tell what it is?
• Something that reduces to three or four colours and still looks good would be "nice to have" since it allows us to print high quality Chocolate Doom stickers!

[jmtd]

Could the wrapping colour be varied by game - that could be one way to distinguish doom/heretic/hexen/strife