From the Archives: Old studio photos (2015)

[Raphael van Lierop]

Here are some photos from the second Hinterland studio space (circa 2015). These were originally taken for a PC Gamer article, but not all of them were used so for some this the first time they've been shared.

 

I had a lot less grey in the beard back then. 😅

You'll notice a few neat things:

* Whiteboard scribblings where we are still figuring out the relationship between our regions.

* Paper design of the first "stats" screen for the Journal.

* Fluffy prototype (there's a small sticky note on the door jamb just off camera with an arrow pointing up "Look out for wolf" that my kids wrote when they were tiny.

* We still have the wooden sign based on the original fox logo; it's in our Vancouver studio currently. Many of the other studio "props" are currently split between our two physical studios.

[mintietcatm]

Oh this is lovely! I would love more behind the scenes from the team 

[Raphael van Lierop]

5 minutes ago, mintietcatm said:

Oh this is lovely! I would love more behind the scenes from the team 

We're a pretty private bunch, and this industry is not generally friendly to devs being more open or sharing, but we're doing what we can.

[mintietcatm]

12 minutes ago, Raphael van Lierop said:

We're a pretty private bunch, and this industry is not generally friendly to devs being more open or sharing, but we're doing what we can.

No I definitely get that, it'd be nice in an artbook way of some how, of course if you're okay with sharing the whole thought progress on how tld was brought to life, as an aspiring game dev I'd love such insight 

[Raphael van Lierop]

7 minutes ago, mintietcatm said:

No I definitely get that, it'd be nice in an artbook way of some how, of course if you're okay with sharing the whole thought progress on how tld was brought to life, as an aspiring game dev I'd love such insight 

Oh yes, we'll have an art book with plenty of BTS and dev insights in it. We owe this to some of our KS backers who have been waiting for Ep5 to be finished before we could complete this book, and we'll make sure the book is available (for purchase) to other TLD fans when it's done.

[MarrowStone]

I love the map on the whiteboard in the background. I wonder if that would've been a major find for the community if anybody caught on back then!

[ManicManiac]

These are wonderful, thank you.  

Also, that wood carved logo... is just gorgeous.

Edited May 22 by ManicManiac

[Leeanda]

It's great to see these.. I get the need for privacy so even more appreciated.. 😊   the warden looks like he's doing a good job of keeping his eye on things😁

May I ask why the logo was changed though,?

 

 

Edited May 22 by Leeanda

[Raphael van Lierop]

7 hours ago, Leeanda said:

May I ask why the logo was changed though,?

Logos and branding change as companies evolve. The original logo was a woodcut print created by a UK-based artist, Jane Beharrel (https://janebeharrell.com) whose work I found and absolutely loved. Jane is now focused on painting but at the time she was exclusively doing these amazing nature-themed woodcuts and I'd seen a red fox she'd made and thought, wow, that really captures the spirit of what I'm trying to do with Hinterland. I asked her to make a new one for me, and she created the original fox woodcut which we used for a logo for a while. Sadly, it turns out things used for logos need to be designed that way, and the original print was just too detailed to scale way for a lot of the ways we need to use logos in modern contexts, so we simplified and modernized it to the logo you see today.

There's a good chance the logo will change again in the future. Companies need to keep themselves fresh! But we'll always keep a place for the original logo, as it's part of the Hinterland story.

[Leeanda]

3 minutes ago, Raphael van Lierop said:

Logos and branding change as companies evolve. The original logo was a woodcut print created by a UK-based artist, Jane Beharrel (https://janebeharrell.com) whose work I found and absolutely loved. Jane is now focused on painting but at the time she was exclusively doing these amazing nature-themed woodcuts and I'd seen a red fox she'd made and thought, wow, that really captures the spirit of what I'm trying to do with Hinterland. I asked her to make a new one for me, and she created the original fox woodcut which we used for a logo for a while. Sadly, it turns out things used for logos need to be designed that way, and the original print was just too detailed to scale way for a lot of the ways we need to use logos in modern contexts, so we simplified and modernized it to the logo you see today.

There's a good chance the logo will change again in the future. Companies need to keep themselves fresh! But we'll always keep a place for the original logo, as it's part of the Hinterland story.

Oh I see..  well it's definitely a lovely piece of craftsmanship, but I understand the need to simplify it now..

I'm glad the original will stay with you..

[Leeanda]

She's an amazing artist ,from what I could see before Instagram decided to demand I sign up, if the rest of her work was as stunning I can see why you chose to ask her .  

[Semple Fi]

I would love to see everything in those photos added as Easter eggs in the Final Cut….

 In fact, the region sketch would be a fun Easter egg associated with Rüdiger’s experiments…

[Karl Grylls]

21 hours ago, Raphael van Lierop said:

There's a good chance the logo will change again in the future. Companies need to keep themselves fresh! But we'll always keep a place for the original logo, as it's part of the Hinterland story.

I would love to see the shop offering the ingame coffee cup with the old logo!

[twyn1]

Oh! yes, totally understand the need to simplify, but that original logo is really beautiful! 

Thanks for the photos and a little bit more of the history behind TLD.  & your "Fluffy" prototype looks adorable & huggable, unlike what I've read about the in-game Fluffy of Carter Dam (being a latecomer to the game, I never had the "pleasure" of meeting said wolf)

[stratvox]

Nice pics. Yeah, we all had a lot less grey going on ten years ago or so, that's for sure  

Really loved the old logo; I liked it because it was different from most logos in tech; it had that hand-crafted feel, just like this game.

[MarrowStone]

Are hoodies still "high fashion with game developers these days"? XP

Also is the wolf up there called the "Air Raid Warden?"