(Design) New Visual Identity for Candela City

[Fine-Feline-3d]

Hi everybody today I'm showcasing ideals and concepts for a new visual identity for Candela City.

I'm a bit of a designer and Candela to me always felt visually a bit vague. the presence of Various European landmarks ported into it and a massive volcano that isn't really visible always felt like lost potential to me. the map is generally visually confusing but I see lots of hidden potential in it.

First step is giving it an identity.

Since it's called Candela, which means Candle in several languages, I thought that would be a nice starting point. The massive metallic gear at the base of their Eifel tower made me think of the people that live here as some sort of highly skilled metal workers.
The Paris style apartments also hint to a pretty industrialized society and that volcano in the background might even be exploited for it.

Since the city is hanging on top of the coast I was thinking this should be made more evident, because while playing you really can't tell. controlled lava streams might be integrated into the design but I'm not sure about this yet.

St.Mark's Basilica with Tower and the Trevi Fountain don't make much sense being there. having Real life landmarks without context just weakens the map identity.
I would honestly replace them with something else in the future.

Taking all of this into account I'm imagining this City as inheriting its name from being historically an important hub for candles, the flame from them being an important symbol for the city, becoming core part of it's identity. Visual references to it being casted into monuments and architectural elements.

so to begin with. I made some rough sketches of how I imagined replacing elements you commonly see across the entire track.
Firstly the fences that on the current map look really outdated and are everywhere. Logically next step would be the street lamps. these old design allow for a lot of stylistic liberties which can help with giving the city it's own identity.
and next I realized we had this very simple arch in the map, in a part that is not really visible much but it was used in promotional material in the past and might become a more important element in the future.
Following are the 3d models I'm working on. they are currently all work-in-progress:

This is the new fence wip


and this is the new Arch wip

both models are work in progress and will be subjected to changes. A Streetlamp model is also being worked on.


more should come in the future.

feel free to leave feedback