in

Which of these Game Maker 8 logos do you prefer?

I stumbled across four entries submitted to the Game Maker 8 logo contest uploaded to the Flickr account of Sandy Duncan.  Presumably these have made the final.  The competition rules stated that there would be five runners-up so perhaps the winning entry is absent.

Click on the thumbnails below to view the logos.

[nggallery id=4]

[poll id=”8″]

NOTE:  This poll was closed as soon as the winning logo was announced.

All images copyright of their creators unless they have been awarded first place in which case they belong to YoYo Games.

What do you think?

103 Comments

Leave a Reply
  1. I have to agree with those saying that the submitted logos look unprofessional. It is understandable GM is being used by teens but it does not mean GM has to have a look of an unprofessional tool. My recommendation is, give a copy of GM to finalist and start over with more rules for designing the logo. If you want, before this, open an option in the poll saying “None”

  2. Wow. Everyone is so negative.

    @OlafK The third one’s mine. The only reason it has artifacts is because Philip Gamble has a cheap jpg version of it which everyone should know makes an image loss quality. The YoYo team has my original highquality bitmap which, unlike this version, is crisp and clear.

    Thanks to everybody for your votes/comments so far. The hateful/negative posts are quite amusing to me. I was hoping Sandy could make an announcement this weekend but It’s looking like he won’t. Best of luck to my other competitors and the mysterious fifth finalist.

  3. How the third one got most votes (not even talking about how the hell it came into final) when you can clearly see artifacts on it? I’m amazed. In negative way.

  4. @Danny
    Yep. I submitted a nice revamped “hammer” logo, but apparently YYG doesn’t want to listen to the community (by the fact that most people want an updated logo rather than a new one).

    I agree though. Clipart is a good description for those logos.

  5. Logos are supposed to be simple. Easy to recreate. Reconcilable, and are not supposed to look like clip art! Why didn’t YoYo games just revamp the hammer. It was the icon of Game Maker. It was simple and easy to recreate. They could have done what apple did and with a simple change of color completely reinvent their logo. But no they asked the community to do it. A community full of kids and teens. What’s the result? Freaking clip art looking logos. The only one I found remotely decent is the last one. Other than that YoYo needs to try again and tell people to just revamp the old classic hammer logo that we all know and love.

  6. I don’t feel like voting for this, as I’m not exactly sure who I would vote for.

    One is good, but not something I want the GM logo to bed. Two… Three I think would make a pretty cool little icon. Then four is a really cool logo, but how it’s supposed to become an icon I’m unsure of.

  7. Hm… don’t want to be rude but it’s all crap – it really doesn’t fit into professional gm look.

    Perhaps from the first picture we could erase everything except hammer and background – old logo with some major improvements would be great :).

  8. I say Gamemaker’s logo should resemble a circle shape otherwise it won’t be like any other Gamemaker version ever. If any I choose #3, but I like the old logo better…

  9. The first two don’t seem at all fitting for Game Maker. Something that looks like a happy Bob the Builder martian or a smiley face within a gear wouldn’t exactly help with GM’s reputation, as said prior.

    Yours, Beneibe, is not a bad concept. Unfortunately, it seems to have been carried out poorly. Is it supposed to be a CD? Because of the shading, it looks a bit more like a metal donut especially when zoomed out. The sharp bevel on the teeth, along with the dark outer glow on all of it, makes it look… not so professional. It has potential, but it doesn’t look especially great as it is.

    Fred’s one is great with the simplistic approach that good logos have, although it seems a bit too simple for me. However, I very much like the icon version, so those two together look great.

  10. Thanks for all the positive comments on my design so far…

    @Xot who said…”The important thing is that it is readable and distinguished when small, which is where numbers two and three lose out to the others. “….
    I never meant for it to have text but Sandy asked for a version with the text. The version you see is only meant to be viewed at a large scale.

    Sandy also asked for icon formats from me so, Following FredFredrickson’s lead, here’s a link to basically what the 32×32 icon looks like.

    http://img43.imageshack.us/img43/4585/screenicon.png

    Purty huh? 🙂

  11. “Normally I’m not negative, but IMO they are all extremely poor and shockingly unprofessional.

    [No offence specifically intended to anyone]”

    I’m always amused when people say offensive things, then try to candy coat it with “No offence intended”.

  12. Ugh.

    There must’ve been some pretty crap entries.

    Hope the fourth one wins (if it is out of these). It looks the most professional and has a nice pun. Although, if it were to be used, it would need to just have the ‘G’ yoyo part for the icon. Or else it wouldn’t look good.

    Kudos for finding these images, Phil. 😀

  13. I guess I prefer Marty’s, although the first one isn’t bad either. They all have their strengths and weaknesses. The important thing is that it is readable and distinguished when small, which is where numbers two and three lose out to the others. No offense to the entrants, but now I really wish I had entered ’cause I would have pwnd joo all! Well, maybe not, but my logo was coming along. I just didn’t have enough time to finish it after having to abandon my other designs because we weren’t supposed to use the letters “GM”. *grumble*

  14. Definitely Fred’s. It looks the most professional, and is simplistic and clean.
    My second choice would have been the green guy

  15. Normally I’m not negative, but IMO they are all extremely poor and shockingly unprofessional…

    Makes me wish I’d have entered…I’d prefer to stick with the current logo as opposed to these.

    edit: Fred’s tops them all, but I still wouldn’t prefer it to any degree.
    [No offence specifically intended to anyone]

  16. All but the 3rd icon lack any bit of professionality. Sorry, there not worthy on my marks. I need something more modern.

  17. I like the third one, but it would need to be updated in a more photographic style. Honestly, none of them are that great. I should’ve submitted.

  18. That’s incorrect…The logo I made was the CD with the gear but is says that was by “A zak”??? I most definetly did not make the smiley face gear one so I’d appreciate if you could correct this for me. (I’m Beneiebe aka B J Laird or Ben Laird)

    P.S. FredFredrickson yours is brilliant. If I don’t win (which I’m thinking I won’t) I hope it goes to you.

  19. That’s incorrect…The logo I made was the CD with the gear but is says that was by “A zak”??? I most definetly did not make the smiley face gear one so I’d appreciate if you could correct this for me. (I’m Beneiebe aka B J Laird or Ben Laird)

  20. notice: the sprocket (or half sprocket wheel, …) is used in few others game making software or game engines (construct, …), so it’s really bad idea, to have it same.

  21. Wow, I wish YYG would have kept us as up to date as this, hehe.

    @Philip – Actually, YYG asked me to submit the image as an icon and favicon to assist the judges in making a decision, and what you have is similar, but not quite what I did.

    For the icon, I essentially shortened the string, moved the “” movement marks to be more square (angling 45 degrees across from each other), and added a slight shine to the yoyo and a shadow below. I can post it here later on when I’m not at work.

    I’ve created other logos before, and I always like to keep my designs simple. There’s a lot to be said for being able to reproduce your logo at many different sizes, across different mediums, and a simple but bold design works for that.

    I actually had a lot of ideas for the contest, but in the end, I only went with about four different designs, most yoyo oriented. I’ll have to scan my sketchbook and post it on my blog or something.

  22. The yoyo one is the only one that’s… actually a logo. The other ones make it look childlike and unprofessional. I hope YYG doesn’t pick any other one but that one…

  23. I agree with Blijbol. They definitely don’t make GM look professional. Since I don’t like any of them, I’ll pass on this poll.

    Regardless of the results, I’ll probably change the GM application icon back to the icon I created for the competition, since I quite liked the outcome of it.

    If I were going to vote, I would probably vote for martin’s logo.

  24. Going with Martin Crownover’s, the GAME MAKER with the yoyo. I like how simple and stylistic it is – the other three seem too convoluted for my liking, and as Caniac said, the second is way too reminiscent of YIM.

    Oh, and though this might be a minority opinion, I actually prefer most of those to the current logo, which to my mind looks alright, but very dated.

  25. If I had to choose between one of these and the old logo, I’d say keep the old logo. When looking at most of these logos, I’d incorrectly get the impression that the tool is not professional.

  26. I do like the fourth image. But since there are five finalists, we can’t be sure that any of these are the winners. But still, whatever they pick it will be green, or involve green in some way more than any other color.

  27. Oh darn. I should have asked if I could post a link.. O_O

    Philip, can I post a link to a topic I have dedicated to posting only logos made for the YYG logo competition?

  28. I will say the 3rd one since it resembles a psuedo – professional language. The 1st one makes Game Maker looks like its for 10 year olds, and unless, game maker is marketed solely to them, then smurf no!(If game maker does end up in local stores, the 1st one will work)

  29. Defiantly the first one, looks best, although the others are cool too. I hope that they show all the submissions that didn’t win.

    The second one reminds me of Yahoo Messenger 😛

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Logo competition finalists have been chosen

Time Travel Competition