Close up of the font and style of the EverQuest logo

It’s something fans of EverQuest are all too familiar with.

The EverQuest logo.

Golden text with a curved baseline. A slight gradient from Yellow-orange at the top to gold and brown at the bottom.

A bevel on each letter front face with a slight reflection effect added.

That iconic font. The heavy boldness of the E and the Q. The swoop of their lower lines.

We see it on everything that the game touches. Artwork, swag, websites, loading screens, action figures, books.

On Episode 12 of The EverQuest Show, Fading talks with the creator of that iconic logo.

Kevin Lydy is the senior artist at Darkpaw Games and serves as the Art director for EverQuest.

Usually, Kevin’s work involves creating the landscapes and ambiance of Norrath. But he has an even bigger credit to his name.

Before he officially worked for Sony Online Entertainment, he was contracted to do logo work for a new game called EverQuest.

“If you’re a freelance designer, you do a lot of logos. You learn a lot about that,” says Lydy.

Kevin was given only a very broad guideline for the direction of the logo.

“The direction was pretty open. If I remember, it was something along the lines of ‘It needs to be epic, but not a cliché.’ “

“The actual font itself is based off these old rub-off letters which you used to use. Before computers it was either that or a type setter.”

Within those confines, Kevin created “a thousand iterations” of the logo. Numerous versions included different materials or different lighting.

When asked why the other versions were rejected, Kevin recalls “Well it was essentially ‘Here. Here’s your menu. Pick one.’ And that’s the one that got picked.”

And the EverQuest logo cemented its iconic look for decades to come.

It was 5 years after Kevin Lydy created the iconic logo that he’d actually sit down at a desk and work on EverQuest as an artist.

The EverQuest Show asked Kevin if he realized what an institution EverQuest would become.

Honest to god, I didn’t think they’d ever get it out the door. It was so ambitious. And so unlike anything anybody had done before or even succeeded in trying to do, that it was kinda hard to imagine that it would ever get out the door. Let alone succeed.

Kevin Lydy

But now, realizing how iconic the game and logo.

“I have this sense of what it’s been and what’s it’s meant to people. I think it’s really hard to comprehend the scope of it when you’re on the inside looking out.”