DOKI DOKI is a new full-service audio studio specializing in the creation of sound and music for video games, based in Québec, Canada.

No Fixed Adress worked with them to create their complete brand from scratch, including name, logo and visual identity. The typeface used is Plaak 6 Ney designed by Damien Gautier and distributed by 205TF. The logotype was designed by the agency and inspired by Gill Sans Ultra Bold.

Player 1’s console, with game options setting switches. The source video explains what they do, if you are curious.

This Pong console was featured on episode 89 of the Angry Video Game Nerd. The first five pictures were extracted from this video, which is the highest quality photography I have found of it. The others stem from eBay auctions.

The logo features Motter Tektura and all other on-console text is in Univers. The logo adds a swish around the tittle, reinterpreting it as the Pong ball from the game. The box also uses Univers for all body text and features the same logo, but with the addition of a tagline (“Electronic, color, TV game center”) in Cut-In. The tagline is repeated in Futura Bold in a green field on the box. The manual adds the company name under the logo, in what appears to be Eurostile Extended. From The Angry Video Game Nerd:

Well, this is excessive. Instead of two controllers, let’s have two consoles! Aside from the clunky design, the game works okay, except the right controller’s a little jittery. That’s what happens – the thing about these Pong consoles, and one of the things that make them so fun to play, is that the paddles move so fluently. It’s like an analog control that doesn’t exist in games today. The downside is that they break easily, and sometimes you get this jittery movement.

Player 2’s console. Player 2 does not get to change the settings, but controls the sound switch.

In-game footage, with bespoke bitmap typeface displaying the score.

Knob detail. All four games are variants of Pong, of course.

Both consoles in the same picture at once. Player 1 is right and Player 2 is left.

Top of the box, with good view of all the fonts. The in-game screenshots might also show more numerals from the bitmap font, assuming they are accurate – they seem somewhat stylized.

Box detail with better view of Cut-In and Motter Tektura, as well as of the illustration. The final C in “ELECTRONIC” and the E in “GAME” show the alternates with elongated bottom parts. CT, EN and ER are spaced so tightly that the letterforms touch.

Owner’s manual, featuring text in Univers and a model number in Futura Bold. The logo featured here, and in the warranty booklet, has the company name in Eurostile under the logo. The illustration from the box is repeated, but in a black-and-white version.

An auction photo with everything together.

Source: www.flickr.com Photo by Windell Oskay of Evil Mad Scientist. License: All Rights Reserved.

Source: www.flickr.com Photo by Windell Oskay of Evil Mad Scientist. License: All Rights Reserved.

Blip was a portable Pong-style game made in 1977, the year handheld video games were just catching on. Although it was branded “The Digital Game”, the action was purely mechanical, powered by a wind-up timer. According to the Handheld Games Museum, “The batteries are only there to light up the single red LED light that represents the ball. (You can actually play the game with no batteries in a bright enough setting).”

But that didn’t hold Tomy back from playing up the “digital” aspect. The late 1970s were all about video games, so the company did their best to hide Blip’s true analog nature, branding the product so it looked and felt high-tech and electronic. The name itself is an obvious reference to the sound a computer might make, and they pounded that into the heads of consumers in this television spot.

Source: www.handheldmuseum.com License: All Rights Reserved.

Source: www.handheldmuseum.com License: All Rights Reserved.

Besides the name, type played a major part in Tomy’s futuristic aims: what could be more computerized than Computer? The typeface was used for “The Digital Game” on the box, and the Blip logo was likely derived from Computer as well, but it needed some creative modification as the font had no lowercase. A cap ‘L’ works fine for the lowercase ‘l’, and a squashed cap ‘P’ can fake a minuscule if it descends below the baseline. Meanwhile, the logo on the unit itself appears to be set in Orbit-B, a design similar to Computer, but lighter and more square, with larger counters.

License: All Rights Reserved.

Japanese and German editions of Blip, courtesy sellers swow and Los Reyes Magos.

The Japanese version (left) was labeled “World Tennis”, set in Data 70, another simplified take on the MICR aesthetic. The same font was also used on the packaging for the German “Blip-o-mat” (right).

If you add it all up, this odd little game managed to utilize all three of the MICR-style fonts that were frequently found in futuristic films, entertainment, and other products throughout the 1970s and ’80s. Read more about the relationship between this type genre and video gaming in an extensive article by Zach Whalen.

Poster for the original release of the arcade game Pong in 1972. This was the first release from the newly formed Atari Corporation.