Showing posts with label Dreamcast Logo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dreamcast Logo. Show all posts

Previously unseen prototype Dreamcast logo discovered

We do love a bit of internet archaeology here at the Junkyard, and this little snippet of news has 'digital Lara Croft' written all over it. Reddit user u/LeFaggo recently posted the image above to the r/Dreamcast thread, along with a link to the original source - the Japanese Patent Office.

Could this be a hitherto unknown prototype of the Dreamcast swirl we all know and love? The discussion in the thread points out that this mysterious trademark was actually filed after the familiar Dreamcast swirl that made its way onto the final console design; but it is also noted that sometimes trademarks are filed weeks or months after their creation just to keep them in the system, so to speak.

Either way, it is an interesting glimpse at what could have been. Rather surprisingly, this image doesn't appear anywhere in the excellent Sega Dreamcast: Collected Works by Read-Only Memories. Surprising because the authors had full access to Sega's own internal archive; and the book features many concept images for the Dreamcast's shell design. Perhaps this prototype trademark was filed way back in 1998 and simply forgotten about, hidden in plain sight for over 20 years.

Thanks go to Rich from Dreamcast Years, who then alerted my my colleague Andrew Dickinson to this, who in turn WhatsApped me while I was trying to light a bonfire. Oh, and thanks of course to the ever alert r/Dreamcast community for another excellent and intriguing discovery.

Fontcast

Inspired by the recent tenuously-related-to-Dreamcast article (I kid, Tom. :P ) and inspired by a book on different typefaces, I thought about our own lovely Dreamcast:
No nonsense, elegant
The logo featured is a simple, elegant one. It doesn't wear on the eyes, unlike certain fonts which will go unmentioned (coughinserthatedfontnameherecough) although extended use might tire one a bit. Still, it would be a nice font to have on hand, just in case.

I assumed that the search would be difficult, as some fonts look almost exactly like each other, and many companies have custom lettering made up for a specific purpose. It would take hours - or at the very least, several minutes.
Detective time!
Turns out, nope. There were the false leads of Tahoma, Myriad and Verdana - but even a cursory examination showed this to be false. Fortunately, the site My Fonts came to the rescue, positing the font Basilea (not to be confused with Basilia, a completely different font). Upon downloading the font and trying it myself, I found it to be a 98% match.
Lovely, eh Tom?
By way of a little background, all I could discover was a My Fonts' user noting that it was "designed by Markus Low in 1965." Further search reveals that it won the "1965 VGC National Type Face Design Competition."

And there you have it. Another lovely piece of trivia about our beloved console.

Southend Museums - Where Dreams Are Cast?

Thanks to DCJY Facebook follower Andrew Runagall for alerting us to this - it looks as though Southend Museums in the UK have a secret obsession with the Dreamcast from the look of their corporate branding. Probably best not to let Tivola see this - they'll be forced to change the colours. Well, the orange swirls at least!
The NTSC Gallery is now open
The PAL Gallery is delayed by around four weeks