Tetris Attack Music Album Logo

In the previous post, I described how I came up with the front cover of Tetris Attack rearrangement music album. The cover actually requires an additional element: album title logo.

Inked album title logo

The album title is "Tetris Attack: Hocus Pop! Opus". How would the title logo for an album that reimagined music from Tetris Attack look like? It is a tough question for me as I don't usually design logos. For hints, I browsed existing albums at OC Remix. I concluded that the logo should have the game title and the album title.

Tetris Attack felt "cute and friendly" to me, so I thought the text should be rounded. As a start, I simply combined the game title and album title. I had many questions in my mind. Should the game title be smaller than the album title? "Hocus Pop! Opus" is a long phrase for a logo. Can I break it into 3 lines? Should the game title be in the album logo at all?

Logo sketch round 1

The project director, Xaleph, picked #2. At this point, I experimented with what I knew about drawing a logo. I remembered feeling lost, unsure which idea I should draw on paper. My solution was to simply draw what I could think of.

• #1 was a redraw of the logo idea picked in round 1 with one small difference: "Tetris Attack" was more dominant.
• I experimented with arc look for "Hocus Pop Opus" in #2. I also attempted to simplify the busy look by using only 2 type faces in #2 (compared to 3 type faces in #1).
• In the game, a match makes popping sound. This gave me the idea of drawing a "bursting" shape to contain "Hocus Pop Opus" in #3. I decided to emphasize "Pop!" and simplified "Tetris Attack".
• I was attracted with the idea of fitting the logo in a circle. So I drew #4.

Logo sketch round 2

Xaleph liked #3 and #1. This informed the direction for round 3.

• As I did in round 2, I started with a redraw of the "explode" shape idea with #1, giving more thought on the "explode" shape. For variation, I gave "Tetris Attack" a blocky type face and "POP!" a rounded one.
• With #2, I experimented with soft "cloud" shape for cute & friendly feel. "Tetris Attack" was now more relaxed; on a ribbon. Mystical look for "Hocus".
• #3 explored a fitted shape behind "Hocus Pop! Opus". "POP!" used a different typeface as the center of interest. "Hocus" and "Opus" looked pressed like tiles in the game. Finally, I simplified "Tetris Attack" with some aspects from the game title. The letters of "Tetris" followed the orientation in the game title; while "Attack" was a silhouette of the text in the game title.
• For #4, I experimented with a new direction. "Hocus" and "Opus" were vines around "Pop", which in turn had Yoshi's egg. Note the stylized Yoshi head shape on the bottom left. I thought this one probably looked too busy; but it was a fun exploration.

Logo sketch round 3

Xaleph wisely gave his thoughts about different elements rather than simply picking one design. He wanted the emphasis on "Pop!" and the "burst" shape. The "Tetris Attack" element should be similar to actual in-game logo.

I was painting the front cover in parallel, and sat on this for a few weeks. When the colors were good enough and it was time to add the logo, I drew this one as a "final" version.

Final logo

The next post should cover painting the front cover. See you then!