New GFL Helmet Design – Krakens 2686 Season

From scottsigler.com: “Krakens owner Gredok the Splithead put it to a vote, and over 250 Ionath fans responded to make this helmet the new look for the 2686 season. After 25 years and a major accomplishment (we won’t say what, due to spoilers for those who haven’t read the series yet), Gredok felt it was time for a change.

This design (called “Modified #2″ in the voting) was the runaway winner. It features the Krakens logo moved down to the facemask, so that the “tentacles” are more prominent in the overall helmet design. It also gets some hardcore “Krakens Orange” in those tentacles to replace the orange-yellow that has been there for 25 years.

POLL RESULTS
59% – Modified #2 (New 2686 Krakens Helmet Design winner)
30% – Modified #1
11% – Current (Original Krakens Helmet Design)“

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I love doing projects that involve re-imagining existing designs into new/fresher options. During the development of the cover and interior collateral for the pending release of Scott Sigler‘s latest Galactic Football League limited edition hardcover (for Book V: The Champion), we decided to give the main team (the Ionath Krakens) a redesigned helmet… but left the final decision to the fans of the series.

For this one, the original helmet featured a stylized version of the Krakens logo (see to the right). In this case, the logo was placed very high on the forehead of the helmet and focused more on the six (6) tentacles. It featured muted orange–almost yellow-ish– color scheme on a rich black background and a light orange-yellow plain facemask. Behind the logo and also high on the forehead is the shield design from the logo, but it’s subtle and almost overpowered by the tentacles. All in all, it was a very solid design.

We had a couple potential “alternate” helmet designs that the fans could choose from (including the original design). The fan favorite can be seen up close below.

For this design, we moved the logo down such that the shield was centered on the face-opening (focusing on the “eye” of the shield on the face) and stretched the tentacles out to encompass more of the helmet. We enriched the orange of the tentacles to make them closer in color to the uniform color (see to the right) and also bled the logo design onto the facemask as well, giving it a modern, elegant and intense feel.

When presented with the options (Modified 2, Modified 1, and Original), the fans votes spoke volumes. Almost 60% selected the new helmet design as the winner, while the original received 11%.

The fans had spoken… and we listened.

Not only will the new helmet design be prominently featured in THE CHAMPION, Book V of the GFL series which will ship in September, 2014, it will also be interwoven into the storyline as well, further enhancing the GFL universe and making it more real.

I personally love this design (yes, I am biased… so what!) and I’m glad that the majority of the fans had similar good taste.

Don’t have your pre-order in yet for Book V? Click here and get some.

Scott Siglers’s books can be found here (his Amazon author page) and here (his website).

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