Maybe its just a reoccurring art style that they choose to utilize, much like how long ago they chose the color scheme for the games and the palette of colors that they wanted to work around.

I'm going to refer to those diagonal lines as 'hashes'. The Bungie/Destiny website style pages have featured similar diagonal lines (in varying directions) for almost as long as the marketing campaign. They are referred to as 'hashes' in the image source.

I feel like the Grimoire had the answer, but since access has ceased I can't look into it. I think each class was further delineated by its own card and image cover, and there may have been one for the City or Tower with these hashes involved? Maybe it is just power of suggestion from the rest of the posts in this thread. It is foggy.

Maybe the hashes could just mean Guardian in general? The three separated classes make up the larger Order of The Guardians?

Or possibly the hashes could in some way represent 'Legend'? Or Legendary status? Pick your Guardian class -> Become Legend

Here are hashes accompanying the Alpha Lupi ARG desktop of The_City. (I still liked Beorn's dark version the best and it is locally hosted)

Hashes were also used in the art for the ARG as a style overlay.

There was also the shield with hashes featured in the art for the difficulty selector on individual missions on the map (Alpha and Beta). This bit might support the idea of it representing "Legend" since you pick a higher difficulty to "Build Your Legend"

They can be seen on this Crucible banner:

Why would a building have a coat of arms?

Who knows, but "Tower" in this context does refer to more than just a building.

What does it refer to then?

Why would a building have a coat of arms?

Who knows, but "Tower" in this context does refer to more than just a building.

Taking a guess, I think it's the City's coat of arms.

I'd say your bang on here, but the Tower not the city.

Why would a building have a coat of arms?

Taking a guess, I think it's the City's coat of arms.

I'd say your bang on here, but the Tower not the city.

As for the fourth design, I think it's there to fill space, I'm pretty sure it's pretty unusual to leave a quarter of a design blank, but I'm not a heraldist. Knowing b.org, though, the chances are relatively good someone around here might be....

i'm in agreement with you here as well. Will have to check.

It's the new guardian crest t-shirt that's available in the Bungie store. I reckon that the last quadrant is just a decorative flourish to balance out the heraldic quality of the shield device.

It's also in the Tower, or it was. In the beta if you walked like six to ten steps forward from where you spawned and looked down you could see that design set into the floor.
Taking a guess, I think it's the City's coat of arms.
As for the fourth design, I think it's there to fill space, I'm pretty sure it's pretty unusual to leave a quarter of a design blank, but I'm not a heraldist. Knowing b.org, though, the chances are relatively good someone around here might be....

https://twitter.com/DeeJ_BNG/status/503952727508926465

Heh. If anything this is getting me excited for what Destiny can become in the future. With its tech and mythic background you can justify almost any class one way or another! :)

Yeah, I lean towards this being more relevant for a future Destiny installment. With all the testing that's been done between the three classes it would be pretty unusual to include a fourth in the shipped game.

2. The three person fireteam seems to have been pretty set even back when Destiny itself was a leaked rumor. Remember the old old leaked concept art with three Guardians always? I don't doubt we'll see more subclasses eventually, but three classes feels right and in some ways, terribly contradicting myself from point one a bit, it kinda feels like we have most of the roles covered. Titans have great close range support or great defense and buffing. Hunters get terrific mid range power or fast close range strikes + stealth, Warlocks get good mid ranged area of affect devastation or a big buff to any range they want with Radiance + the weapons of their choice.

Hmm... maybe it's some sort of 3rd universal subclass that you work on after you have finished your basic 2 subclasses... or perhaps it's more of a "prestige" class?

Still very interesting picture. Maybe I should have asked this at the beginning, but is that logo official? Where did it come from?

The class logos on the top came from earlier versions of the class emblems that Bungie released. They were on t-shirts sold on Bungie.net as Hunter, Warlock and Titan and the emblems also appeared on a variety of other official pieces of concept art. Strangely, Bungie has changed the class emblem t-shirts they are selling on their store now and they look very different. The Guardian Crest design (which uses the three "old" versions of the class emblems) is on the Guardian Crest t-shirt from the Bungie store.

1. There is a mystery fourth class. Ok, then what is it? Looking at engagement ranges doesn't help us so much since both the Arc Titan and Arc Hunter are powerful as close range. I'd propose we would want to look at archetypes then. We have the Warrior, Wizard, and Rogue. What else is there? Healer? That might work. Necromancer? Brings enemies back from the dead to fight on your side? That'd be very interesting. Or maybe a technological variant where a Guardian uses his Ghost to build disposable attack drones?

Heh. If anything this is getting me excited for what Destiny can become in the future. With its tech and mythic background you can justify almost any class one way or another! :)

2. The three person fireteam seems to have been pretty set even back when Destiny itself was a leaked rumor. Remember the old old leaked concept art with three Guardians always? I don't doubt we'll see more subclasses eventually, but three classes feels right and in some ways, terribly contradicting myself from point one a bit, it kinda feels like we have most of the roles covered. Titans have great close range support or great defense and buffing. Hunters get terrific mid range power or fast close range strikes + stealth, Warlocks get good mid ranged area of affect devastation or a big buff to any range they want with Radiance + the weapons of their choice.

Still very interesting picture. Maybe I should have asked this at the beginning, but is that logo official? Where did it come from?

Bear cavalry?

I really hope it's bear cavalry. I need that visual to come to life.