Gaming Archives - SupeRanked

Sony launched its PlayStation brand back in 1994, followed by four major consoles, all of which have received refreshed designs. If there’s one thing that has never been changing is the iconic triangle-circle-x-square logo. This genius intuition dates back to the very original controller, and since then it has become one of the most iconic graphic elements in the gaming industry. Above all, one of the most flexible. In the year of PS5 we want to pay tribute to this unique logo with a redesigned pattern.

Overview

For years people have pondered the meaning of Sony‘s brand-defining controller face buttons. The Cross (or X) and Circle buttons are simple enough to decipher — the Circle represents “go” or “ok” (as is its use in Japan) and the Cross represents “no” or “cancel”. Meanwhile, Western games have managed to reverse the commands over time.

While said shapes are easy to explain, the Square and Triangle buttons are a less straight-forward. Thankfully, Japanese designer Teiyu Goto – who designed the first three generations of consoles – has revealed all in a recent issue of Famitsu. “Other game companies at the time assigned alphabet letters or colors to the buttons. And so we wanted something simple to remember, which is why we went with icons, and I came up with the triangle-circle-X-square combination and gave each symbol a meaning and a color”, he said. “The triangle refers to viewpoint; I had it represent one’s head or direction and made it green. Square refers to a piece of paper; I had it represent menus or documents and made it pink. The circle and X represent ‘yes’ or ‘no’ decision-making and I made them red and blue respectively. Consequently, people thought those colors were mixed up, and I had to reinforce to management that that’s what I wanted.”

Source: Sony PlayStation official website

Concept

It’s a fascinating story and we’ve decided to pay tribute with a small concept for a seamless pattern which incorporates the acclaimed logo. As there’s plenty of designs around that leverage already on such set of symbols, we’ve taken a different route and focused on a female-oriented pattern, inspired by Women’s Day PlayStation 4 theme released last year by Sony.

Once decided the direction we would have taken in terms of design, the next step was to test the likability of such pattern in a way that was easily understandable. Therefore, we’ve decided to try it out by implementing it on a tech accessory such as an iPhone case.

Details

Brand: Sony PlayStation
Source of inspiration: Triangle-circle-x-square logo
Designer: Vikka (Ukraine)

Your Opinion

We’d love to hear from you, rate this project and let us know your comments in the section below. In addition, you can submit your own design to us, more details here.

Your opinion on Identity:

How well do you feel this design can represent Sony PlayStation identity?

Your opinion on Style:

How good is this design at proposing something new in terms of style compared to what you usually see in shops?

In 2016, Blizzard—the company behind World of Warcraft, Diablo, and StarCraft—announced Overwatch, a hero shooter where every character has a completely unique set of abilities, allowing players to find the style that best fits their needs. This project is a tribute to one of our favorite games and one of its most iconic characters: Soldier 76.

Overview

When Jeff Kaplan announced Overwatch 2 just a few weeks ago, we were in front of the screen watching Blizzcon live. And we started thinking how awesome it would be to work on a mechanical keyboard based on one of their iconic characters. “Say no more!” The day after, we started discussing some of our sketches, and we ended up prioritizing a Soldier 76 inspired design because . . . we missed him too much from the O2 reveal trailer.

Concept

First thing we had to decide was the size of the keyboard. We opted for a mechanical tenkeyless layout as it strikes a good balance between functionality and portability. After that, it was all about infusing Soldier’s style into chassis and color scheme, with the inclusion of a LED add-on that is reminiscent of his visor and it would have a practical function of acting as notification bar for Discord, Twitch, etc. The result of our brainstorm was a vector art mockup.

In the following weeks we’ve been working at the 3D render, which has allowed us to focus on the details. Colors, materials and the structure of the chassis have been refined. The notification bar has passed through a major overhaul compared to what we had in mind during the vector art phase.

The component is now getting even closer to Soldier’s visor design and since it’s supposed to act as an add-on for the keyboard we’ve included a pogo pin connector for an easy swap with other modules for different Heroes.

Other details that it is worth mentioning: portable sleek and compact design (you can decide whether to carry the Hero add-on with you or keep it home), USB Type-C plug, detachable braided cable, two-step angle adjustment and rubber feet for adequate stability.

This is it for now. We will probably get back on this project with some updates related to the add-ons, which we think could resemble some other Heroes from the Overwatch roster.

We’d love to hear your thoughts on this project. Please rate this project and leave us a message down below. Let us know if you have any recommendation or if there’s a specific Hero you would like us to explore for the next add-on to the keyboard.