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Nike Designer's Beautiful "Game of Thrones" Sigil Re-Branding. Will George R.R. Martin Say Yea or Nay?

By Rain Noe - August 31, 2012

in Design Business | Graphic Design

Fan fiction, or "fanfic," is the phenomena whereby fans of a particular fiction series like Star Wars or the Harry Potter books begin writing their own spin-off stories to share with other fans. Writers get points from the community for both how interesting their stories are and their fidelity to the universe of the original; for example, no one gets kudos for writing about Han Solo running an auto body shop in Massapequa.

The closest industrial-design-related thing I can think of to fanfic are those RC guys that we saw in the S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier post, though you could argue that, impressive as it is, it's not quite ID. But an interesting graphic design version of fanfic just came to my attention: Darren Crescenzi, a Portland-based Brand Designer for Nike and a Game of Thrones devotee, has essentially "re-branded" the house sigils from George R.R. Martin's five-tome epic. (By "house sigil" I mean coat-of-arms, a family crest; click here to see an earlier post on the subject.)

As reported by Fast Co., Crescenzi re-interpreted what were of course only written descriptions of each sigil mentioned sporadically throughout the books, and found himself engaged in a massive graphic design exercise:

"That endless pursuit of visual consistency [required at Nike] was one of the driving forces behind the look and feel of the poster. I never thought of the project as a series of logos; The approach was much more that of creating an icon set."

Crescenzi's finished product, which comprises some 42 crests on a poster, is undeniably beautiful. However, he is selling them as prints, which somewhat alters the project from being a labor of love to a vehicle for profit. That makes us very curious to see GoT author Martin's take on them, as he is famously prickly about fan fiction, particularly where it concerns profit.

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robb

11 years ago

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Kennedy,

You think these are abstracted beyond the point of comprehension? Wow. It's hard to see them all at this small size I'll admit, but that Kraken could not be easier to recognize. Really don't understand how you have the audacity to say that this has no thought behind it. This is fantastic work, and I don't throw compliments around loosely. He brought his own unique style to the interpretations, that's what makes it captivating.
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wneleh

12 years ago

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"no one gets kudos for writing about Han Solo running an auto body shop in Massapequa."

REALLY? I'm not in Star Wars fandom, but AUs are definitely big in, e.g., SGA.
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Kennedy Collins

12 years ago

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Forced minimalism strikes again.

Crescenzi seems to have the idea that less information somehow equates to more efficient communication. In this case, he's clearly wrong. Instead of thinking about the purpose of the objects he is designing--to represent a specific object that the house identifies with--he decided to abstract them to the point of incomprehensibility.

If I didn't already know that the Greyjoy sigil was a Kraken, would I be able to tell by the image he created? I doubt it. Ultimately, this "re-brand" is just another Seattle's Best: a graphic exercise with no though behind it, and an abject failure in terms of actual branding and design.
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