App review: Brandomania HD for iPad
The goal of any good logo design is to make a lasting impression on whomever sees it. The company hopes that whenever a particular graphic or design is seen, the consumer will immediately recognize it and associate it with its product.
Brandomania HD for the iPad puts that to the test in the form of a challenge. The entire goal of Brandomania is for you to recognize a brand based solely on a part of its logo. Sound simple? Well, in practice it can be quite difficult.
When you first open the app, you are greeted with the ability to play Level 1, which is unlocked, or choose from one of three pro levels to play. The three pro levels are cars, luxury, and tech logos. You also have 200 coins available right away when you start the game. You can use the coins to either unlock new levels or buy hints and bombs. (I’ll explain that a little later, but for now let’s jump right into Level 1.)
When you begin Level 1, you will see a page containing 20 parts of different logos. I’m sure that some of them will be immediately recognizable, and others might take a little bit of studying to figure out what they represent. And there will probably still be others that you don’t recognize at all. Every time you open up one of the levels, the logos are shuffled around. When I first opened Level 1 I was greeted with the 20 logos you can see below.
Obviously, some of the logos are very easily identified. On this first page, Facebook, BMW, PlayStation, Android, and Nike jump right out at me, and at second glance I could probably name most of the brands represented on this page.
When you choose which logo you want to guess, you are taken to a screen with just the logo part in the center and a collection of 12 letters, like what you see in the next picture. You are told the number of letters in the brand’s name and you simply have to fill them in in the correct order.
If you choose to use a hint, Brandomania will tell you something about the brand you are trying to name. Using Android as an example, the hint told me it was, “An operating system for mobile devices such as smartphones and tablet computers.” If the hint doesn’t help, you can choose to use a bomb, which will erase all of the letters you don’t need, as well as correctly place the first and last letters of the brand’s name.
Once you correctly guess the name of the brand you will be awarded with a star that tells you how many brands you have solved per level, and you will be awarded coins. The number of coins you receive is based on the number of incorrect guesses it took you to figure out the brand. You then take the coins you have earned and unlock new levels.
Brandomania has seven levels, each with 64 logos, for a total of 448 different brands to guess. That’s more than enough brands to keep me guessing for a while! If you want to see how many brands you can guess, head on over to the App Store and give Brandomania a try. I would love to hear how you did on Level 1 in the comments below. I got 49 out of the 64 logos solved.
Download: iTunes
