Hi everyone!
I’m fortunate enough to have a banner which shows off all of our Tabletop RPGs very nicely. It’s a go-to for me in many situations, and it all comes from one person, Alexander Korchnev, my longtime ally and graphic designer extraordinaire!
I thought I’d take a moment today to talk about the importance of graphic design and layout in an RPG that goes out into the world.
It’s a funny thing – even the smallest amount of graphic design can transform a product from black letters on a white page into a sci-fi datapad showing you the information, or the feeling that you’re looking through a cracked gas mask in the post-apocalypse.
The majority of the graphic design and layout choices I am most proud of in our products are focused on the idea that less is more. For example, I think Era: Balam’s enclosed page was actually not the best possible design, it was overcomplicated and distracts from the content on the pages.
I would always recommend thinking about the minimum that can be done to “flavour” a page to send the message the way you want it to. That way, it focuses on the feel of what you’re doing, rather than trying to thrust it into the reader’s face.
Whether you’re someone who likes two columns or one on your page, whether you work on A5 or A4, and even if you create your games in Word, convert to PDF and print, think about putting something in the background to make your text pop!
– Ed
