I'll be honest, when I set out on this journey designing Undergrowth I had no idea which creative type typically did what. I knew roughly what an illustrator does and I knew roughly what a graphic designer does, but knowing quite where one ends and the other begins when it comes to board game design was a bit of a mystery.
Board, player board, cards and components for Undergrowth: A Tunnel Crawling Quest.
What I've learned has mostly been the result of busking it. I read as much as I could on game design pages and groups, but the fundamental questions I had about where to start, which creative to work with first, how to establish a budget and what to ask the illustrator to do and what to ask the graphic designer to do were answered gradually through trial and error. So here's what has worked for me.
When to start getting art work done.
Whilst I wasn't sure exactly who would do what in realising the board game visually, I figured I needed an illustrator first. I found it really useful to get some tester illustrations of characters for character cards once I'd created a full paper and card prototype and established that there was definitely a game in there somewhere. I guess this was the point where I knew I wouldn't be giving up or ditching the game idea. Getting four character illustrations created at this stage achieved a few key things. Firstly, it gave me a momentum boost. Maintaining the feeling that your always moving forward with your design process is very important I've discovered. Secondly, it gave me insights into the world I was creating. That's right, I learned more about the world, its aesthetic and its possibilities by seeing someone else's creative take on aspects of that world. Thirdly, seeing characters (and I think this would be true of other game elements) brought to life inspired ideas about character capabilities and therefore game mechanics. The game itself changed because I chose to get some art work done early on. Finally, commissioning limited art assets at this stage was instrumental in choosing an artist for the project.
Choosing an artist
This happened first time for me, but did involve a fair amount of research. I had looked on plenty of local illustrator websites, visited lots of online artist hubs and browsed sites like Fiver but not really found what I was looking for stylistically. As a university lecturer my next port of call was to look at the online degree show from that year's graduates on the illustration degree at the university at which I work. I had a general aesthetic in mind and looked for illustrations which were close to what I was envisioning in style. I was fortunate enough to stumble across the fabulous Kate Parker whose illustrations of fantasy style characters, whilst not at all like the characters in the game, were illustrated in a style I imagined would work well for the game. Knowing little about processes or budgets I dropped her an email and the rest is history so to speak.
Using contracts for phases of work (e.g. four characters, a player board, the main board, sets of components etc) kept the commitment manageable and prevented the artwork from getting too far ahead of the design and testing processes. This is important because although early artwork helped with some game design processes, the cart mustn't lead the horse. Remember that the artwork and graphic design exist to serve the game design, not the other way round. An initial contract binding both parties to a handful of tester assets and nothing beyond that is a really good idea. Open, honest upfront comms with your artists ensures everyone knows exactly where they stand. In my case Kate knew that if the tester illustrations didn't work for me I would pay for them and we'd go our separate ways with no hard feelings. Fortunately she hit the nail on the head. For her part, she was clear that I should give her as much detail and information as possible about what I wanted and she made it easy to say yes or no to elements of her prototypes.
One thing I was adamant about from the outset was that I would own the license to whatever she created for me. My view on this is similar to Jamie Stegmaier's. I'm paying for these assets and therefore, I own them. This is a deal breaker for me. The contract made this clear but that I also granted license to Kate for any reasonable use of the illustrations for her own promotion as long as any licensed usage didn't spill the beans about the game before my own promotion and marketing.
Let's pause here and recap the lessons I learned early on...
Lesson 1 - Commissioning some art work early can give you a real momentoum boost, but remember, that it's easy to get carried away. Commissioning too much too early can be costly if your design plans change and you need to get it re-done later.
Lesson 2 - Getting a few early art assets completed can help reveal insights about the game and about your intentions for the game.
Lesson 3 - contracting some paid for, no-obligation tester illustrations first was a commitment-free way of deciding if the artist could create (and develop) my vision. Doing your homework first really helps here though.
So, when does the illustrator end and the graphic designer begin?
Good question. A key part of the answer to this question lies in understanding exactly what each brings to the party. In simple terms, your illustrator creates the artwork and your graphic designer turns that artwork into a board game. This means character art becomes cards and an image becomes a board or a component. The designer puts the ergonomics or play-ability into artwork. They take it from being something to look at, to being something to use. In my experience, you need to know and feel confident about most elements of your game before getting a designer involved, unless you're going to spend a fortune on restarts, redos and adjustments.
Diver's Helmet illustration by Kate Parker
Obviously you're considering play-ability to an extent while getting illustrations right, and you're considering aesthetics when getting graphic design. But my experience has been that your graphics are what cement your mechanics and how they are arranged visually determines how easy it is for players to actually play the game. If you're still play testing, start with the elements least likely to change, the elements most secure. For me this was iconography for cards. I knew the icons, their meanings and corresponding mechanics worked and I had an idea of what I wanted them to look like.
Series of tester card icons for Undergrowth: A Tunnel Crawling Quest by Peter Marshall
In a similar way to how I commissioned a tester phase of four character illustrations with Kate, I began by asking Peter to design a range of card icons for the game. This was a useful way of evaluating whether his style was aligned with my vision for the game aesthetic.
Peter Marshall at Onebold (who is also designing his own game) was able to produce exactly what I was looking for. This wasn't entirely straight forward because Undergrowth: A Tunnel Crawling Quest straddles multiple styles aesthetically. In terms of game play, it's pretty much an out-and-out strategy game, although unlike most strategy games combat is a key element. Thematically however, it has some dungeon crawler elements and aesthetically is a mix of woodland realm and subterranean caves. For this reason I was looking for a graphic designer who could bring some of that styling to balance and complement Kate's gentler illustration style. Bit of a risk, but I think it worked. I learned a lot from Peter, including things I wish I'd known or learned beforehand! Probably the most significant lesson was the a graphic designer needs to know the dimensions of the physical game before they begin. Everything, from card templates to components to boards will be designed to fit the eventual print dimensions so talk to some game manufacturers, mock up an order and look at/measure existing game components that you own to get a solid dimensions data set. If your tokens are 15mm in diameter, the illustraion needs to be clearly visible at that size. Where they are placed on the board needs to be 16mm, This 16mm space on the board needs to be in proportion to the whole board graphic spatially and when a token is moved from the main board to your player board or onto a card the 16mm space where it sits needs to fit spatially on that too. There's so much to consider. Lesson 4 then, is try to establish as much of that information as you can as early as possible. Make decisions as early as possible about board dimensions, box dimensions, card dimensions, player board dimensions etc. All these things influence and are dependent on one another, particularly if you're planning on having card decks located on your board like I was for Undergrowth. Talk to your graphic designer about all the details he or she will need in order to prepare the game for print. Then, ask which of these details have implications for the illustrator. For example, Kate's fabulous main board illustration (below) turned out to be too small for the planned board print dimensions, because whilst I had given her the planned b oard dimensions, I hadn't realised there would be a need to the image to fold over and wrap around the edges of the board when printed. I had to ask her to go back and enlarge the image all the way around, which you can see wasn't a straight forward job. This cost me additional time and money. Discussing requirements, particularly for dimensions, with Peter at the start would have saved a lot of hassle. So, I suppose lessons 4.5 is, enlist a graphic designer earlier than I did. I already had a load of illustrated assets before I hired Peter. I'll be talking to my graphic designer first on my next game.
Final version of the Undergrowth main board.
Both Kate and Peter were super patient with me as I stumbled my way through all this, going back and forth between them requesting adjustments here and realignments there. You'll save yourself a lot of time (and expense) by getting your dimension ducks in a row in advance.
Blacksmith and Filibuster Dweller cards
Peter did a great job of working with Kate's illustration and designing complementary card templates.
Once we had agreed to card template (the border and the positioning of icons), Peter was able to send a template overlay guide to Kate and all subsequent character card illustrations were created to fit within it.
Card template overlay guide.
One of the best decisions I made was to hold joint meetings between myself, Kate and Peter and next time I will do this from the outset. Putting them in touch with one another made all our lives so much easier. They were able to talk their special tech/creative industry language with one another and nothing got lost in translation via me. Lesson 5 therefore, is get your creative colleagues communicating. Whilst they're working for you, they probably speak a language you don't and you'll benefit from them being able to communicate, share content and collaborate.
This of course requires trust. One of the judgements I made early on with both Kate and Peter was whether I felt I could establish an open, transparent and mutually trusting working relationship with them. The initial tester phases were as much about enabling me to judge this as they were about assessing if they were a good creative match for the game and this is another good reason to commission some no-obligation assets to start with. There were some telling signs that both Kate and Peter would be excellent partners to work with:
Their prompt, clear, friendly and frank communication over email from the start gave me confidence that we'd be able to iron out any problems that arose along the way.
Sticking to deadlines and delivering assets on time gave me confidence that they took the work seriously and valued my time.
Ease when discussing money and contracts was an indicator that these topics would not be awkward moving forward.
Flexibility when agreeing on how many stages of alteration/redesign were reasonable at each stage gave me confidence that there would be give and take in the working relationship.
Everyone is different, so some first time designers will read this and may think of other things more important to them than these. Whatever gives your gut the feeling that you want to work with someone, that's what you're looking for in your early interactions.
To capture our thoughts about how we developed a solid and flexible working partnership, Peter and I recorded a retrospective discussion about the development of ther player boards for undergrowth (I'll add the link to this when it's published). We talk through the processes of moving from word processed protoype, through several versions to get to the finshed version below
Individual player board for Undergrowth: A Tunnel Crawling Quest.
So, to summarise the next set of lessons learned....
Lesson 4 - Enlist the services of a graphic designer at the start and discuss all the functional details around dimensions, safe zones and necessary image resolutions.
Lesson 5 - Get your creative colleagues communicating with each other.
Well, that's all for this post. Feel free to comment or ask questions below and I'll do my best to respond.
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