ODO logo changes

Soooo...with the new site in the works, the officers and standard bearers have been thinking some things over, among others potentially changing the ODO logo on the website (the big 3 factions emblems layered over one another that is on the front page, top left) and on Discord (the server icon). Reasons why:

Discord: the current one has a lot going on, it's meant to be the 3 factions emblems within the 3 letters, but it's scaled so small that it just comes off as a lot of texture on a small surface. Maybe we could use something clearer and simpler.

Website: similarly to the Discord one, is really flashy and has a lot going on, but more importantly, we've heard back that even though it's supposed to be representative of a multi-faction cabal, the templar cross in front is too pronounced. So far, the general feeling among the officers regarding the look of the new website has been, and I quote: "Keep it extremely simple stuffed with simple and with minimalism gravy" (because we're good at words), so that means something as fancy and flashy is just not going to work.

Here's the kicker. Bri got bored at work and whipped up some options that are not bad at all, but I'd like to hereby ask for any other submissions for the website logo - so if you get bored at work and have always felt like being a graphic designer is all you ever really wanted to be, share it here! We were thinking it'd be cool to ask for submissions (in the form of even a sketch or ideas, to avoid anyone having to put too much work into something that might not get selected) and then put together a shortlist that we could all vote on with a poll on the website to select a new logo. The only thing you'd have to keep in mind is the extremely specific guideline of "minimalism gravy", not pronouncing one faction over the other and keeping in mind that preferably the logo should look clear no matter the size - i.e. tiny details might just look like random texture when scaling the logo down.

To get the ball rolling, I'm attaching the ones Bri did:

(1) This is the one we're currently thinking for Discord, since it looks good and clear small, it's already round and fits into the allowed space and shape neatly. But of course if you think it's hideous or you have an idea of your own, please share.

Other ones were meant for the website logo (I think, although (2) would work for Discord, too):

(2)

(3)

(4)

(5)

Not really the point rn, guys 😝 Still waiting for other submissions.

1 and 5 do well scaled.

They are both simple enough to even be svgs and can easily have their color reverted to support white and black backgrounds.

As @AWOL says, the logo variant we are currently using also works. What we currently have is okish, but it could have been better. We might risk ending up with something worse by changing it.

I like (1) for discord, (4) for the website - it looks fine scaled down and as a bigger logo, I think the shapes add a cool faction/game reference, better than the dice. I think the point of the logo primarily would be to use it on the site itself (which would be bigger) and any recruitment posts/accounts we might have anywhere, maybe? So we can't have the world revolve around the website icon on the browser. Whether or not that looks detailed and cool is lower priority, imo. But as I said, I think (4) does both fine.

Then I must have misunderstood, I thought we were replacing both as they were before - the one on the website and the one on Discord (as they were separate before I didn't even consider having just one for both). I personally see nothing bad about it, with a website/recruitment forum posts logo separate from the discord server icon (that we don't use anywhere else), as it gives us a little more options. For the occasions that the logo is large and visible, I'd like something eye-catching and game-reference-y, but that gets lost when scaled down. I think rather than limit ourselves so hard, it could be worth just going for more cohesion, maybe colour-scheme or design-wise. What I mean by that is that the current Discord icon and the symbol on the old website did not match up even one bit. But if we used (1) for Discord and then any of the other ones for the site, it already looks a crapton more cohesive in terms of colour and geometric design.

The logos used by web pages are:

Browser tab image (favicon.ico):

Top bar logo (logo.png):

Open Graph image fetched by Discord and social media when pasting a link to the site (og-image.jpg):
See The Open Graph protocol.

The last one is also most likely used as Discord icon. Discord keeps the original image and scales it to different sizes based on the Discord client used. Some clients use larger icons. The main point here is that it needs to be large as an og-image and discord image.

Exactly my point :D I think having a discord icon be of a different design, but cohesive, is not a huge crime. I just think that trying to find a perfect one where it does not look too unrelated to the game or plain when scaled up, yet looks clear scaled down might be a tad unrealistic. But maybe I'm just unimaginative. If we had to use one of those five options for both, though, I'd go with (1) - something about the geometric simplicity...fits the website too.

I made this for shits and giggles, posting it here, too (satisfies my want for faction/game reference). No idea how to get it in vector or to make it look like not trash. Someone with more skill is welcome to do so, this was just the general idea.