Mortal Kombat Logo

Mortal Kombat Logo PNG

The Mortal Kombat logo introduces the participant to the world of martial arts and hand-to-hand combat through amazing creatures that hold power and the secret of ancient techniques. The emblem looks mysterious and magical, with elements of formidable grandeur.

Meaning and History

It is believed that the Elder Gods from Mortal Kombat can transform into dragons when they transform into their true form. Such imagery occurs periodically throughout the video game series. This means that the logo partially overlaps with the plot, although it does not reveal it, leaving room for imagination. The formidable mythical creature is used as the main symbol of MK because of its mysteriousness and because of the qualities that it represents: courage, fury, strength, fighting spirit, and desire to win.

What is Mortal Kombat?

The Mortal Kombat series of video games in the action-adventure genre and the fighting game became the basis for the franchise of the same name. Numerous films and cartoons have been shot based on it, novels and comics have been written, theatrical performances, and online gambling have been created.

1992

The legendary black dragon on a fiery background appeared exactly this year and has always remained on the franchise logo since then. Only his environment changed, but not himself. A round medallion with a wide frame depicts a mythical creature with a forked tongue and empty eye sockets. The top of the circle is yellow, the bottom is red, and they mix to form an orange glow in the middle. The gradient is smooth and soft, without sharp transitions. The dragon’s silhouette is graceful – curved, with wavy strokes, which, however, does not prevent it from instilling a threat.

1993

This year’s logo variant retained the previous contours and received new ones. A round sign with a curved dragon is placed in the center of a vertical rectangle. Moreover, it became dark to convey the oppressive atmosphere of the game’s plot. The elements of intimidation are flashes of lightning, thunderclouds, gray smoke, and dark blue, which are widely present in the emblem. Hope for good is given by a shining reflection in the forehead and eyes of a mythical creature. Below it is the inscription “Mortal Kombat” and the background number “II.” They have colored yellow-red with a gradient.

1995

The 1995 logo has a completely different style. It has a 3D design with a rocky texture that makes the sign look like it was carved out of marble. Even the roughness of the relief with dark spots is visible. The black background and the precise distribution of the shadows make it so. The dragon is the same: large, intimidating, with a protruding tongue, spikes protruding along the back, and with curved lines. The feeling of fear adds to the realism of the mythical animal and its burning red eye.

1996

The next modification brought a black silhouette of a dragon on a red brick background with flames rising up. Above the circle appeared the inscription “Trilogy,” which directly says: this is the logo of the third part of the game. The name is located at the top and is typed in capital letters with small serifs. The whole composition is in a vertical rectangle.

1997

A year later, the icy visual identity of the video game was born because the story takes place in extremely frosty conditions. This is evidenced by the addition to the title of the fourth part – “Sub Zero.” The inscription is designed accordingly: it is white with a bluish gradient and sharp serifs. The emblem, as before, is voluminous. It exactly matches the style of cold and looks like a figure made of ice. The background of the dragon is a black and blue square with a white trace of a blizzard.

1999

The name of the series, “Mortal Kombat Gold,” of course, is sustained in golden color. A black dragon on a yellow background looks very impressive and conceptual. The inscription is superimposed over a circle with a mythical creature. It is textured, bright, and convex.

2002

A few years later, a computer game dedicated to the Alliance appeared, as indicated in its title. The disc with the dragon is scaled down and placed inside a large V stylized as a melee weapon with spikes. Blood is dripping from the tip of the letter (at the bottom). The background of the mythological creature is painted in the same red color, and it is depicted in a metallic texture.

2003

In this episode of the game, the cold metal in the emblem has been preserved. It still decorates the dragon, making it an impregnable element. Not only is it metalized, the frame surrounding it and the side elements resemble a cutting tool. The background is the same everywhere – blood red. There are two inscriptions in the logo: they are located on two levels and are located under the round sign. The top line is typed in block type with a three-dimensional effect and backlit on the left. The word combination in the bottom row is made in careless letters with a cut edge – each character looks like it was cut with a sharp object. All components are placed in a black square.

2004

The 2004 logo again took on a round shape. The dragon seems to be illuminated from below, as evidenced by the rays directed upwards. He himself is black, as is the frame surrounding him. The background is yellow with a gradient. The lettering is white. The top line is completely taken over from the previous emblem. The lower one is typed in a font with wide and pointed letters.

2005

A year later, the drawing style of the Mortal Kombat logo changed: a vertical black rectangle appeared, a large yellow inscription, and under it, a small red one. The name is so large that it overlaps the lower part of the dragon. By the way, the background on which it is placed is now darker than before. The yellow color is preserved in the form of a smoky stroke around the perimeter of the black silhouette.

2008

The video game Mortal Kombat grew into something grandiose, which was immediately reflected in the identity. As a result, the emblem became light, but with a large-scale smoke screen in the background. Thin lightnings penetrate the yellow, olive, and brown colors concentrated in it. They are on the dragon, as well as on the top inscription. The bottom line has an additional graphic element – an oval with a star. In fact, this is a circle, but due to the diagonal arrangement, it is visually displaced, so it seems to be an oval.

2011

The 2011 logo has an updated design that, at first glance, has nothing in common with the previous one. However, the commonality is still preserved – in the dragon, which is again used to refer to the popular franchise. The designers enlarged the medallion with the mythological animal, added a shell-like texture to it, and moved it away from the edge to lengthen the spikes and make them into sharp curls slightly. The forked tongue also became thinner and more elegant. The eye glows with golden light reflected from a yellow-red background. The edge is wide, voluminous, and black. There are no inscriptions on the emblem.

2015

After the release of the next part of Mortal Kombat, the logo became monochrome and restrained. The white silhouette of a dragon in the same white circle is in a black rectangle, along with the franchise’s name. The inscription is strict, lowercase, with needle serifs at the ends of the letters. Next to it is the issue number – X.

2019

The latest part of the landmark video game is back with a golden logo representing passion, fire, confrontation, and high voltage. At the same time, not only the dragon in the frame is painted yellow, but also the inscription located under it. However, the color is not solid – it is a gradient. On the icon, the lightest part is the bottom, and in the title, it is the central one. The dimming goes to the right and to the left from the number “11” to the extreme letters.

Font and Colors

The original graphic sign of Mortal Kombat is made in a red-yellow-black palette. The dragon here looks like a shadow, which indicates its elusiveness. The artists depicted the head on an elongated neck, making the only visible eye transparent. The curved lines give the picture a dynamic feel.

Because of the dragon’s curved neck, the emblem is associated with Taijitu, an ancient Chinese diagram that consists of two interlocking spirals. This divided circle has been popularized in Western culture as a “yin-yang symbol.” It represents a combination of two opposites, harmoniously complementing each other.

However, in the Mortal Kombat logo, the right side of the circle is empty. The black dragon is contrasted with the bright red and yellow space. The designers used such a contrast to make the character visible. And the colors can also symbolize its fiery element, so that a simple white background would be inappropriate.

There are several variations of the logo with additional elements. The main version contains only a dragon without inscriptions, so there is no talk of fonts. The color palette is more varied: the dragon and the edging ring are colored black, and the space inside the circle is colored red and yellow. Moreover, the last two colors are presented in several shades that smoothly flow into one another. The gradient symbolizes fire and passion. By the way, the dragon’s long tongue also looks like a flame, and this coincidence is no coincidence.

Mortal Kombat color codes