Funky Panda Games
Logo (2014)
During the second half of 2014 I teamed up with a bunch of talented game developers and we founded Funky Panda Games, a new Mobile/Social Gaming startup based in London.
At first, being the only artist in the team, I was in charge of all the visual aspects of the studio: Art Direction, Logo Design, Character Design and Character Animation.
Apart from the original art direction, I also had the opportunity of writing the story and main plot of the first IP of the studio: Monster Mountain, a Role Playing Game for mobile devices.
Monster Mountain won the Best Role Playing Game TIGA Award 2016.
At first, being the only artist in the team, I was in charge of all the visual aspects of the studio: Art Direction, Logo Design, Character Design and Character Animation.
Apart from the original art direction, I also had the opportunity of writing the story and main plot of the first IP of the studio: Monster Mountain, a Role Playing Game for mobile devices.
Monster Mountain won the Best Role Playing Game TIGA Award 2016.
During the very first month, the only concept behind the logo of our start-up company was picking up an animal as the main character. This zoological creature ended up being a cute baby panda later on. It wasn't a super important thing personally and I was quite happy with it, but frankly, I never quite got why it had to be an animal, even though I eventually guessed the reason behind it was some kind of tradition in the realm of the Social and Mobile Game Industry. Studios like PlayFish, SpaceApe or HoneySlug did it before. They picked an animal and played around with it placing a cool adjective first.
Funky Panda was the original name proposed by our team leader and, eventually, it was the conclusive one. To be completely honest, I was never fully convinced by the ambiguous word funky since it has quite contrary meanings for all the different english-speaker people around the world. Something funky can be used to say that something's cool (even though this usage has fallen out of popularity), but it could also be utilized to say something is stinky... Errr... it's okay I suppossed, it's fun anyway.
When I shared ideas with our CEO I was completely cool with all the panda thing, but stilI I tried to come up with different options for the rest of the name so we could have more choices to pick the right one.
I quite liked the idea of using one single word, the idea of being more direct and straight-forward. So I eventually tried with the name Pandamonium. The images for this idea were also much more appealing and charming to me than a simple/smelly panda wearing sunglasses. Something like a cute panda prince from the kingdom of Pandamonium, capital of Panda Hell, yeah, this could be fun! It had the sweetness of a classic teddy bear, but also the tongue-in-cheek badass feel for a videogame icon.
I quite liked the idea of using one single word, the idea of being more direct and straight-forward. So I eventually tried with the name Pandamonium. The images for this idea were also much more appealing and charming to me than a simple/smelly panda wearing sunglasses. Something like a cute panda prince from the kingdom of Pandamonium, capital of Panda Hell, yeah, this could be fun! It had the sweetness of a classic teddy bear, but also the tongue-in-cheek badass feel for a videogame icon.
In John Milton's Paradise Lost it's said that Pandemonium is actually the name of the capital of the Underworld. So, in order to make this Pandamonium mascot character I needed visual inspirations, and I soon remembered a beautiful and symbolic theory that I read many years ago in an old book. In its pages it was suggested that Hell was actually located in Saturn. Also, Dante describes in his Divina Commedia the seventh circle of Hell as Saturn itself.
Besides, this ringed planet is also the very homeland of the melancholy and forlorn spirits, that's why saturnine means also blue, melancholic or gloomy.
So, being the melancholy bastard I am myself, I always loved this poetic interpretation so much, therefore I immediately started playing with this idea and making different sketches, placing a pensive and dreamy panda prince on top of the planet, and turning his rounded head into the actual planet of Saturn.
Besides, this ringed planet is also the very homeland of the melancholy and forlorn spirits, that's why saturnine means also blue, melancholic or gloomy.
So, being the melancholy bastard I am myself, I always loved this poetic interpretation so much, therefore I immediately started playing with this idea and making different sketches, placing a pensive and dreamy panda prince on top of the planet, and turning his rounded head into the actual planet of Saturn.
I trusted this name idea so much, Pandamonium, and I also liked the narrative image behind it. Unfortunately, it wasn't that well received by the boss. Still, I had to try! And at least, this little Panda Prince of Doom was actually accepted as the winged character that now flies on top of Funky Panda Games logo.
Thanks for watching!
