WotC WotC Gets A New Logo?

According to the Wall Street Journal's David Ewalt, Wizards of the Coast has a new logo. His article was the piece where we learned how Hasbro was restructuring.

Update - WotC just updated the logo on its social media accounts, so it's official!

WotC - D&D Gets A New Division At Hasbro

Hasbro is reorganizing and giving tabletop gaming -- Dungeons & Dragons and Magic: the Gathering -- a higher priority. According to the Wall Street Journal, WotC's revenue last year was $816 million (a 24% increase on 2019). Brian Goldner, Hasbro's Chief Executive, says WotC is predicted to...

www.enworld.org

Here's the old logo for comparison.

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[embee]

I'll try:

There's two basketballs in this logo. WHY?!?

And then they felt they had to match other parts of the logo to the color of the basketball - which, I get you have to keep it to 2 or 3 colors, but...brown stars? Two of them?

That's just for starters.

The reason for the colors is brand synergy with the Washington Capitals, whose colors at the time were also cerulean and bronze.

 

[ART!]

The reason for the colors is brand synergy with the Washington Capitals, whose colors at the time were also cerulean and bronze.

Fine - make the star in the hat white. Something. Anything. I really stinks of a logo-by-committee with no one on the committee knowing anything about design, and then handing their lists of corrections on to their design person who just did the best they could. I have been in this exact position as a design person, and the results were similar.

 

[embee]

Fine - make the star in the hat white. Something. Anything. I really stinks of a logo-by-committee with no one on the committee knowing anything about design, and then handing their lists of corrections on to their design person who just did the best they could. I have been in this exact position as a design person, and the results were similar.

It's a moot point. They abandoned the Wizard logo a few years back for all the reasons that teams do. To sell merch. To stay relevant. And also to avoid problems that they didn't spot the first time. For example, this logo doesn't have a crescent and star, which the Wizard logo did, which should make the Islamophobia crowd happy.

Of course, this one has a whole lot of Freudian baggage to it.

 

[ART!]

View attachment 133641
It's a moot point. They abandoned the Wizard logo a few years back for all the reasons that teams do. To sell merch. To stay relevant. And also to avoid problems that they didn't spot the first time. For example, this logo doesn't have a crescent and star, which the Wizard logo did, which should make the Islamophobia crowd happy.

Of course, this one has a whole lot of Freudian baggage to it.

Why on Earth would they not put the white stars in the blue field, rather than in the red? Ridiculous. Also, the gray is kind of ruining this, although I get what they were thinking.

Anyway, this is minutiae mostly unrelated to the new WOTC logo, which I think is pretty good. The light from the A could be animated for tv/movie/videogame purposes, and it creates a sense of something inside ready to burst forth, or something mysterious inside, which is probably what they were after.

 

[embee]

Why on Earth would they not put the white stars in the blue field, rather than in the red? Ridiculous. Also, the gray is kind of ruining this, although I get what they were thinking.

Anyway, this is minutiae mostly unrelated to the new WOTC logo, which I think is pretty good. The light from the A could be animated for tv/movie/videogame purposes, and it creates a sense of something inside ready to burst forth, or something mysterious inside, which is probably what they were after.

I've actually got no problem with the WOTC logo. Frankly, the "classic" logo was long in the tooth and needed a refresh.

This one is definitely made for film. The camera can either zoom into the A or pan down/zoom to the coast pictured below. In which case, the "Coast" goes from being the Pacific Northwest coast of the company's founding to being the Sword Coast.

 

[Argyle King]

I like the concept.

However, it's literally painful to my eyes. Something about the contrast coming to a head at the center focal point like that causes my eyes to hurt.


Edit - second thoughts:

Looking again, something about the lettering seems weird to me. It's not bad, but something about it doesn't seem quite right. I'm not entirely sure what the focal point of the image is supposed to be. The light from the A seems to be where my attention should go, but the slant of the letters also implies that they're point to something or intended to direct my eyes toward something, so there are at least two competing focal points. I think that may play into why (for me) the logo hurts my eyes a bit.

I still like the general idea because it reminds me of the Alan Wake logo, but -as is- it looks more like a prototype than a finished and polished design.

 

[briggart]

This thread has made me realize that I readily associate TSR logo with D&D and AD&D2e, but I don't do the same with WotC logo and 3e and 5e products, so I don't really care too much for the logo. I'm not sure if it's because boxed sets had more real estate to prominently display TSR logos, or simply because TSR was in charge of D&D when I started playing.

Also, I can't find Wizards logo on my 5e PHB, DMG, and MM, while it's on most other 5e supplements I own (exceptions are those with alternate cover, so it's possible the regular cover version has it).

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Also, I can't find Wizards logo on my 5e PHB, DMG, and MM, while it's on most other 5e supplements I own (exceptions are those with alternate cover, so it's possible the regular cover version has it).

That's a curious observation, you are correct. Most of the rulebooks have both D&D and WotC logos on the back, but the core rulebooks only have the D&D logo. Maybe it's something to do with having the same name as previous edition core rulebooks published by TSR? All the other 5e books have unique names.

MY SCAG has both the WotC and Green Ronin logos on the back.

 

[briggart]

That's a curious observation, you are correct. Most of the rulebooks have both D&D and WotC logos on the back, but the core rulebooks only have the D&D logo. Maybe it's something to do with having the same name as previous edition core rulebooks published by TSR? All the other 5e books have unique names.

MY SCaG has both the WotC and Green Ronin logos on the back.

That sounds reasonable to me, there are likely some IP/copyright laws which are relevant here. But to add another curios bit to the story, the 3.5 PHB, DMG and MM have both the d20 and Wizards logo on the back cover, so it seems that something has changed in the way WotC brands the core rulebooks over the years.