Fugue State Parse

As I mentioned in another thread, I've been interested in playing around with Fugue State Parse's logo a bit.  I don't love the design I came up here with as much as the Luminary one I did, but I like it enough and think it's an improvement over what's shown on the Kickstarter currently, so I thought I'd share it.

I tried various ways to incorporate the wall of code we see on her original card's incap side into the design but found that in just about every case all it did was muddy things up rather than improve it.  I finally settled on having it in the background of the top of the card.  I think it delivers the wall-of-code effect I was looking for without being too obtrusive back there.  It also helps to hide the bad clone stamping I had to do in Photoshop to remove the text from the art available on the Kickstarter. :)

I also wanted the "fugue state" tag line to focus on the overlapping nature of how I think Parse sees reality now, as if she were Neo viewing the code underlying the world at the same time she views the world itself.  That was hard to do without making it unreadable, but I think what I ended up with does what I was looking for well enough.

I didn't incorporate arrows into the design at all.  That would have felt too literal and I don't think it needed it.

Hope you like it.

Fugue State is slightly too hard to read. Especially the word State where the washed out letters behind it blend too easily between the letters in the foreground. Other than that it looks pretty great.

One thing I would do though is instead of having that floating code behind the PARSE text, to instead incorrporate it inside the PARSE letters. That might look pretty good.

That's what I meant when I said I tried a bunch of different ways to incorporate the code but all it did was muddy up the design.  Having the text inside the PARSE makes it look like you spilled something on the PARSE.

Fair enough!

I think it looks great. I like it that Fugue State is a little hard to read, honestly. It's no worse than some of the weird fonts that have been busted out.

Perhaps just dim the background “fugue state” lettering a tad more? Or add a black glow around the front characters.

But, yeah. This design is awesome.

I love it!!
Except for the floating background code. That seems like too much code on the card, just my opinion. But her name, and the words Fugue State look perfect!

Love it Spiff. Captures her bio a lot better than the original.

Something about the Benchmark Supply and Demand logo also seems a bit off (but vanilla Benchmark is fine).

I could easily be convinced that the background code is too much. It might not make it to the final version.

The next two on my list aren't ones I think are broken per se, but I've got some ideas for how I'd like to change them. We'll see if I can find time to work on them later in the weekend. 

I like it, although I do think that the backround code is too much.  The problem, in my mind is that there's three different sets of overlayed text - the background code, the equations in the air, and the background "fugue state".  Having all three feels redundant to me, especially since the background code and the fugue state text overlap.

I'm not entirely happy with the picture itself either, but that's not something that's easy to fix.  It's a lovely image, but it doesn't convey to me the urgency her bio leads me to expect.  I think that that could be solved with either a more actiony pose or a less blank expression, but it's hard to know for certain.

Eh, she's got Asperger syndrome/autism spectrum disorder. A degree of muted affect (lack of expression) is not unusual.

Especially after being BSoD'ed by OblivAeon.  I understand.  I just think it contributes to the lack of dynamic element in the picture.  Maybe if she looked like she was about to throw her arrow, rather than just simply holding it?

Actually seeing her throw an arrow would be neat, but it's hard for me to object to a blank expression on a card which literally describes itself as a "Fugue State".

I also really like this design - and vote against removing any background elements.  The code and the double Fugue State really help to get across the "too much information" idea which underlies the character.

*A version of Parse recovers from her BSoD. She appears in front of a team of heros with a wide grin on her face. She waves.*

"Hi!" She sounds super-upbeat. "It looks like you're trying to defeat a terrible cosmic force bent on annihilating the known universe, and beyond! Would you like to try one of these templates?"

"Yessssss..." Absolute Zero deadpans as he slowly, calmly, levels his apertures...

AHHH!  CLIPPY!  RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!

That was great.