The story of Rockstar's transformation from DMA Design, the Scottish developer of the "Lemmings" series and "Grand Theft Auto," to an international publishing powerhouse, has been told several times before. For starters, there is David Kushner's book Jacked: The Outlaw Story of Grand Theft Auto, and the BBC documentary drama The Game Changers, starring Daniel Radcliffe. There is also a feature on how a rock star made millions of dollars selling a Scottish export, dark comedy.
One story that has never been told is how the company's instantly recognizable logo, with its yellow background and R and stars, came to be. Scott (then Karen Mui), who explains how she and artist Jeremy Blake created the image that has become inseparable from the company.
At the time, Rockstar had a marketing plan to print the logo on stickers and distribute them throughout New York City, where Scott and Blake had just opened a new office where they were hired. It had to be a sticker, and it had to be a glue that wouldn't peel off at all. It has to be a glue that won't come off even if you try to peel it off. It has to be something that, when I was a kid in the '70s, if you put it on a bed frame, it would never come off." It's to make it harder for someone to grab it if they try to peel it off. [Gold or yellowish gold is reminiscent of the '70s, such as the early Kodak logo or something with the same vibe as early rockabilly rock music," Scott explains.
When she and Blake joined the company, the new name for the company had not yet been chosen, but the small, mostly British team seemed determined to act like rock stars. 'We go to restaurants as a group, and everywhere we go we get kicked out,' she says. 'You can't just randomly try to start something with someone, because in America we have guns. You don't know what they're going to do to you. We also created a class ring. It was almost like a cult for us. We were small enough to take risks.
The early New York office had a staff of only about seven, and funds were scarce. Says Scott, "We had a low budget. It's funny to think about it now," Scott says, "because it's a lot bigger now. I remember at one time we didn't even have desks. There was like a cardboard box, and you had to work on it."
Scott says that at one time there was not even a desk.
Scott also designed the packaging for GTA 2, worked on the flyers for a series of events at a club vinyl called Rockstar Loft, and was part of the Earthworm Jim 3D and Thrasher Presents Skate and Destroy She was also a member of the production team for Earthworm Jim 3D and Thrasher Presents Skate and Destroy. Two years later, she left Rockstar and spent the past 15 years at Microsoft, where she is now the principal design manager.
Rockstar, of course, eventually became one of the biggest video game companies of all time, with "Grand Theft Auto 5" becoming the second best-selling game in history. Currently, Rockstar is working on "Grand Theft Auto 6" and thanks to leaked information that apparently "will not affect development," we got to see some of it earlier than expected.
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