The Zion Sonic Logo
Client
Zion Games
Project duration
2 months
Project requirement
Signature sound for game & video content intros
Gaming doesn’t get the credit it deserves for being a super art form. The industry has long been a melting pot of art, storytelling, film making, coding – which many will argue is an art form by itself, and of course – music. Some of my favourite Spotify playlists are sound tracks of games I love – mainly FIFA and NBA2K. In fact, EA Sports, the makers of the FIFA series and many other killer sports based games have one of the most recognisable, simplistic and iconic sonic logos of all time – the booming baritone of journalist Andrew Anthony bellowing the words “EA Sports – it’s in the game”.
So we absolutely jumped at the opportunity to create the sonic logo for Indian Gaming Company – Zion. This was a super fun team to work with for a potentially iconic piece of audio branding (we’ll see in ten years!)
The Brand – An interactive video game company that allows users to create, play and monetise their games using the fundamentals of blockchain economics.
The Process
1. Identifying what the brand represents – A Sonic Logo is an extension of a brands’ personality, so it was first important to understand what this brand is about. In this particular case, this task was relatively easy since the brand had done extensive studies which were presented to us.
This chart allowed us to pick sonic attributes that align with the brand. The brand primarily though of itself as playful and colourful (the only attributes that are 3s on this scale – the highest possible rating) and is to some extent Feminine, youthful, bright, contemporary and all other attributes rated 2 on this scale. This meant we would have to pick sonic attributes which are playful and colourful (more notes as opposed to less notes, Happy notes as opposed to sombre notes) to define this sonic logo. We then used the 2s on this list to tell us what to stay away from. For example – since this brand describes itself as feminine, we stayed away from heavy bass sounds (such as the Netflix Boom).
What does the brand do – The brand is competing in the space of Sandbox adventure gaming. We therefore studied the biggest competitor in this space – Minecraft, and what made Minecraft’s sound design unique for gamers.