Pokémon badges
Type of Project
Personal project in collaboration with Designer André Gonçalves
Context and motivation
Pokémon GO has brought to all of us the nostalgia of capturing our favorites monsters, making us walk an incredible amount of kilometers just to hatch an egg and, of course, testing our nerves to battle in gyms. But even after thousands of victories against gym leaders, those iconic badges that we used to watch Ash getting so far were left out of Pokémon GO. Inspired by how amazing they were in the cartoon and previous games, we decided to design our own gym badges. We walked around Dublin City Centre to find out what were the eight most prestigious spots where we could find gyms that could start this project. And now we present to you the very first real badges that you can get in Pokémon GO.
Design process and outcome
After Andre and I decided on which places/Pokémon Gyms to represent on badges we divided the efforts and each person was assigned a few badges to design. We did a research on those 8 landmarks, looked at the different styles of Pokémon badges present on the original games and anime to discover what we liked about those designs that could be implemented in our badges. We defined colours, presence and width of stroke and gradient finish so we could create a consistent set of badges. I was responsible for creating Spire, Phoenix Park, Smithfield Lights, Oscar Wilde and Christ Church badges. In the end we printed real pins with the artwork of Smithfield Lights and we hand in to friends that play Pokémon Go with us _Only if they are able to defeat us in a battle, of course. 😉 .
SPIRE OF DUBLIN
The crossed pins create a balanced form in association with the crossed bands, which represent the shopping/pedestrian street, Henry St. (in orange), and O’Connell street (in grey). A rounded spike connects everything in the centre of the badge in resemblance with the Spire.
PHOENIX PARK
The square was the geometric form used as inspiration to create this badge, in direct relation to the form of the obelisk and the area it stands on. The squared spike gives it a nice final touch.
TEMPLE BAR
Neither pint glasses nor bottles, the Temple Bar badge relates to the beer tap, a sign everybody looks and points at when asking the bartender for another beer. The colours red and yellow are associated with the traditional pub Temple Bar and the hop symbol links the badge to the beverage.
OSCAR WILDE MEMORIAL – MERRION SQUARE PARK
Stylized quotation marks between a fragment of a text are the elements used to represent Oscar Wilde’s figure, and the pinkish colours match with his clothes in the statue, made with coloured stones.
GUINNESS
The roasted barley is one of the main aspects of the Guinness beer produced, so it became the symbol of the Guinness badge. The black and white colours are also an association with the foam and beer when Guinness is poured into the pint glass.
THE THREE FATES – ST. STEPHENS GREEN
This gym badge has the shape of a crown that mimic the leaves above the statue and also refers to the meaning of “St. Stephen’s”, which comes from the Greek language for crown, “Stephanos”.
SMITHFIELD SQUARE LIGHTS
Ship mast and light are the elements that gave shape to this badge. A simplified version of the 12 lights found at this square refers objectively to the meaning of them.
CHRIST CHURCH CATHEDRAL
This colourful badge has association with the rounded stained glasses found in Christ Church. The colours are also related to this religious piece of art.
