An Encyclopedia of Weta’s Sci-Fi Symbols, Logos & Graphics

[Mike J.]

(You can read this on my blog or on the RPF.)

Let me preface this by saying that I am a professional graphic designer, and as such, may be more 'sensitive' to graphical issues like fonts, colors, kerning, and what-have-you...

This is a very technical post, and if you're not interested in design, you might as well scroll on. I am giving nothing away for free here.

In my spare time lately, I’ve been organizing my vector artwork from Weta’s sci-fi films. This includes District 9, Avatar, Elysium, The Amazing Spiderman 2, and Chappie.


Once the organizing was finished, I started double-checking the graphics I’d created. Everything was drawn by hand in Adobe Illustrator (usually because no artwork clean enough for autotrace existed, and rather than tweaking the autotrace settings and then cleaning up the result by hand anyway, it afforded more control to simply re-draw from scratch. I loves me some fine control, which probably says something about me). Whenever possible, fonts used in logos were matched. The team at Weta betrays a surprising fondness for such pedestrian fonts as Arial, though I suppose it’s fair to say that industrial labels are pretty utilitarian and generally free of ‘imaginative’ fonts. What fonts I did not own or chose not to purchase were redrawn manually.


Screencaps, ex post facto prop auction pictures, pre-production art and ‘making of’ books were inspected meticulously, and I was surprised to discover things I had missed the first time around. It was also interesting (to me) to discover graphics being tweaked and used again in other films.


Here is a snapshot of my Weta symbols library as of April 11, 2015. It numbers 147 symbols. I should note there are several symbols that are similar or are variations of the same parts; like the 5 RDA logos from Avatar or the 6 GKR symbols from Elysium. How many do you recognize?


-MJ

 

[Chaank]

Dude, what an epic task! Well done, they look great.

 

[Sporkey]

Those are beautiful!

 

[youngpaddy1]

Amazing work Sir, that's some serious dedication.

The only one I could see that was off even slightly was the kitemark but that's because I see it every day, it's a British Standard mark.

 

[ahoudini]

What a labor of love. Who knows how many prop makers, costumers and model makers this will help over the years. Thank you!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Mike J.]

Thank you, guys.

And Young Paddy, thank you very much. I had no idea that was a real mark; it just looked like a weird heart-shaped thingy to me.


-MJ

 

[Mike J.]

In case you're curious, the British Standard logo appears on the Scout robots in Chappie, and on the laser cutter in Elysium.

Thanks again for IDing that for me, I never would have made the connection.


-MJ

 

[youngpaddy1]

some interesting little graphical changes made between the initial concept and the render.

 

[Mike J.]

Yeah, they ditched the "Murka" logo, though what I can only assume is a giant battery sticking out eh back appears unchanged. Ditched the cyan label, and changed the Kema Keur to something else.

I'm up to 152.

 

[youngpaddy1]

I think they changed up some of the labels because they stood out too much they also changed the logo on the battery from Black Line to 34LK for some reason.

I'd love to see a book of alt world logos similar to los logos.

You can definitely see the influence/appropriation of real world logos in there, I suppose it is that subtlety that makes them more real.

 

[autoprops713]

A lot of Leri Greer's graphic work here that I think kicks ass. I've been following his style since D9. Nice job cleaning these up.

 

[WesDoesStuff]

Fantastic work. I'll post all the junk I've been screwing around with when I get a minute.

 

[guitarpirate]

Skull being shocked by exposed wire is my favorite

 

[Mike J.]

Here's my current obsession: the 2012 remake of Total Recall.

 

[WesDoesStuff]

Alright so I acquired some production stickers. Here is one of the logos from the forehead data-plate of the scout robots. This is the second to last row of logos on the right. Nice little WETA easter egg.

 

[WesDoesStuff]

I also found a bunch of WETA resources with nice clear logos. These are from Elysium.

 

[Mike J.]

Thanks for sharing that Weta one. Funny.

 

[Mike J.]

Christian Pearce just posted some concept art from Chappie on his blog, including a decal overview for the Scouts:

http://christianpearce.blogspot.co.nz/

And he tells us that Leri Greer was in charge of the decals.

While researching some Chappie labels today, I came across some international standards logos, and I recognized a few from the concept art & props. Here they are, marked in yellow. The other sheet shows some German (?) standards logos which bear a suspicious similarity to the GD Grep Diode logos seen in Elysium.


-MJ