Branding a server's arsenal without it looking cheap

#Pick artwork that survives being small

A weapon logo is seen at a distance, in motion, often through a screen recorder and a social feed. Fine linework and thin text vanish at every one of those stages. What survives is a bold silhouette, high contrast and few colours.

• A shape that reads at thumbnail size, not a detailed illustration
• Transparency rather than a background — a logo in a visible box looks pasted on
• Roughly square, filling most of the frame, so nothing is wasted on margin
• Two or three colours, with enough contrast against a dark receiver

#Do not brand everything

A logo on every weapon on the server stops meaning anything. The sets that read well brand what identifies a group — the faction's sidearm and its rifle — and leave common weapons alone.

It also costs less. Pricing is $5 for the first weapon in an order and $4 for each further one, so a focused six-weapon set is $25, and the next faction can be its own order later.

#Keep a set coherent across classes

A pistol slide, an SMG body and a rifle receiver are different shapes with different amounts of flat area. The same logo at the same scale will look right on one and cramped on another. Placement is worked out per model rather than at fixed coordinates, which is what keeps a set looking deliberate.

Where a model mirrors both sides of the receiver onto one texture area, a one-sided placement is preferred so the emblem does not read backwards on the far side. Where the model allows no such choice, the weapon's page says so before you buy.

#Rights

You are responsible for holding the rights to any image you upload. If your city's crest was commissioned, it is yours to use. A brand you do not own is not, however good it would look on a rifle.