LemonTop Creative
5.0
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The Challenge

Four Quarters are a chain of bars dotted around London who cater for those who love retro arcade machine and good beer. As soon as the brief came in memories of being utterly rubbish at the likes of OutRun, Chase HQ, Streetfighter, Sega Rally and thousands of other games who swallowed money like PacMan noms pills came flooding back. They required a tap badge design for their own-label Pale Ale that was being brewed in collaboration with Sharps Brewery from Cornwall, so the challenge was to create a badge that would fit perfectly in with the bar and, hopefully, be a talking point in itself.

The Solution

We heavily researched the visual style of the games of that era – late 70s through to late 80s – especially the in typography and the pixelated graphical style – a style that recently come back into fashion. Four Quarters own logo – which nods so furiously to Super Mario it’s almost headbanging – plus mind-maps and furious scribbling led to a few design options that elicited great responses. The final design took the theme and style elements from Space Invaders but with an extruded twist and a hint of negative space.

Considerations

With this unique tap badge design we had to consider the theme of the bars, the type of arcade machines therein, the awareness of the patrons regarding the stylings of the ages of games. It had to be done in a way that referenced something broad and well known, generic and not Lvl 20 Geek, while being innovative and intelligent. The clients were also keen to utilize parts of their primary and secondary palettes.

The Results

The finished pump clip fits the theme of Four Quarters perfectly uniting the retro arcade stylings with the contemporary surroundings. It was easy, also, to install the colour palettes of Four Quarters into the design as it added to, rather than take away from the visuals.