Alisha Giroux: Art in Board Games #73
“My background in graphic design helps me curb my desire to use all the colours, because in the end working with a limited palette is always going to be more impactful.”
In this board game art interview, I’m speaking to A. Giroux, a Canadian artist, whose work on the Gazebo and Gingham artwork brought a whimsical table presence to abstract game mechanics.
Alisha gave a great talk on the subject of AI artwork called “The Creative Fingerprint,” which I encourage people to watch when they have the time. On a website spotlighting creatives, it should surprise absolutely no one that I’m passionately against any system that profits from others’ work without appropriate compensation and credit.
Alisha has worked with an impressive array of clients, from The Canadian Mint to Shopify, and her talents are now brightening up our board game shelves. Enjoy!
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Gazebo board game box art
Thanks for joining us, Alisha! Could you tell us a bit about yourself?
Hello! I’m a Canadian freelance artist currently living life between the capital city of Ottawa and a small rural farm in Quebec. I spend my working days designing stuff for a variety of cool clients, and my personal time gardening, travelling, road biking, and volunteering in abandoned graveyards.
Sketches for the Primrose TTRPG Rulebook
Have you always wanted to be an artist?
Nope, but growing up, I had a strong connection with nature, and it inspired me to draw all sorts of animals and fantasy creatures from the time I could hold a pencil. This, of course, steered me towards a career in the arts. I pursued a post-secondary education in graphic design, which gave me a solid foundation in design principles, but illustration was always a self-taught endeavour, completely fuelled by a passion for wildlife.
My ‘artistic trajectory’ involved working for a design studio for about a decade, then getting a lucky break that got me into tech. There were a few golden years before a sudden mass layoff happened, and I experienced my first bout of unemployment. It disoriented me in terms of how I saw myself professionally, but in the end, I came out of it more confident and with a much healthier relationship with my work (never tie your self-worth to your employment, folks!). Now, I illustrate more than I design, and I have never been happier with my work.
What is your usual process for creating art?
First, a terrible bout of imposter syndrome must arrive and pass. There’s always this kind of panic moment when staring at a fresh blank page that I’ve come to accept as a necessary step in the process. Once I’ve combed through a few design resources, which can be anything from a book on local mushrooms to the old iSpy publications, something eventually sparks. What comes next is mood boarding, googling, and a lot of sketching by hand. I’m a keen believer in starting with pencil and paper first — it’s faster, looser, and ideas tend to tumble out much more quickly without the distraction of a digital screen.
You’ve worked with various industries, from Shopify to The Royal Canadian Mint. How do you usually land your commissions?
I do get this question a lot! And my answer is that it’s almost always been word of mouth.
The Royal Canadian Mint came about when the studio I worked for was designing coin packaging on a regular basis. I not-so-subtly let The Mint know I enjoyed illustration, and they eventually let our studio pitch a series of packaging and five 1$ coins (loonies), which we won. After that, my name was in their system, and I’ve been pitching designs ever since. To date, I have eight official coins, with over half a million minted designs circulating out there somewhere.
By Fire - Illustration
How did you start working in the board game industry?
It all started with a personal art piece called ‘By Fire’. Allplay saw it and reached out to ask if I could do a few more in that style, which were later published as playing cards Lunar. Lunar led to me being seen by Bitewing Games and working on Cat Blues and Shuffle & Swing, and more recently Gingham and Gazebo.
Working with Bitewing put me in touch with Daniel Newman, which led to the Somnia card game, as well as with Facade Games and their latest social deduction game. All of that came from putting a single, quick digital illustration online, which led to this wild, board game-oriented domino effect. Zero complaints.
Cat Blues features an array of hand-drawn cat musicians with big personalities. Where did your inspiration for the art come from?
Something I enjoy doing is creating playlists for specific projects. So for Cat Blues, I created a jazzy playlist handpicked from my grandfather’s record collection, which included some classic artists like Galt MacDermot (Coffee Cold), Ike Quebec, Horace Silver, Herbie Hancock (Cantaloupe Island), and of course Dave Brubeck (Take Five, Unsquare Dance). Catered and thematic playlists like that really help me get into the right headspace.
And if anyone is familiar with the energizing, jazzy cat scene in The Aristocats, that was a huge lightbulb moment in terms of where I wanted to take the game.
(Below is Alisha’s cat Monty, who sadly passed away the day Cat Blues launched on Kickstarter.)
Gingham and Gazebo are charming abstract games. How do you balance function with personality when working on more abstract projects?
This is a great question — It’s always a delicate balancing act. You want colour, but not too much, imagery, but you don’t want to visually overload the players, etc.. My background in graphic design helps me curb my desire to use all the colours, because in the end working with a limited palette is always going to be more impactful. A good example might be the border designs for Gazebo.
They had to have an appealing theme (bird sanctuary, flower garden), be beautiful and enticing, but not distract from the main game board, so I gave them a crisp aesthetic and limited it to three colours only, with one common colour across all four designs to tie it together.
(Fun fact, Nick and I hid a small nerdy easter egg somewhere in the Gazebo artwork. Props to anyone who finds it.)
Gazebo Board Game - Borders
Somnia is tonally very different to the other board games I’ve mentioned. Is there an allure of working on creatively varied projects?
Somnia was a ton of fun to work on! When new clients come my way looking for custom illustrations, I often ask them to pull artwork from my social media as examples of what they’re looking for. I have a few ‘styles’, mostly born of my constant experimentation. I do sometimes worry that I don’t have one solid aesthetic, but on the other hand I personally have more fun trying to flex my skills and see how far I can push something, and it’s led to some fantastic collaborations. Daniel chose my more inky experiments, and so we ran with that.
For Somnia’s theme, I didn’t pull from my own dreams so much as I pulled from weird art I grew up loving — so things like Beetlejuice or Tim Burton were a huge inspiration. I don’t think I could pull inspiration from my nightmares, unless you want a card game about missing important flights or picking up teeth.
Somnia card game. Designed by Kazuma Suzuki. Published by New Mill Industries.
I listened to your fascinating talk on AI, “The Creative Fingerprint.” Where does this technology leave artists and art appreciators?
Oof yeah, this is the sujet du jour in the art community. In its current form, genAI (text to image/video) runs on IP theft, without credit or compensation to the original artists. Unfortunately it’s sold to the public as a kind of digital magic that pulls from the ether, and many people don’t know any better. And when it comes to its ubiquity, I often compare it to other magical things like Radium, which has good, specific uses, but went through a period where it was unashamedly added to everything from sodapop to paint. Yes, I want AI to help me book a plane ticket, no I don’t want it in my dishwasher. You get the idea.
My biggest worry is the impact it could have on budding creatives. The risk is that they may no longer want to pursue a career in the arts, or worse, use genAI and atrophy skills that would have otherwise blossomed without it.
I could go on! To tie it back to our theme, those I’ve worked with in the board game community really seem to cherish and appreciate genuine creativity and ingenuity, and I hope that’s a trend that continues in the face of techbros doing what they do best.
Do you have any advice for new artists?
Something I wish I’d learned earlier was how to say ‘No’ to the projects that don’t feel like a good fit (listen to your gut on this), and ‘Yes’ to the ones that excite but scare you. The work I am happiest with to date came from saying yes to something I wasn’t sure I could pull off. Do it scared, that’s where you’ll experience the most growth.
Lunar board game. Designed by Masato Uesugi. Published by Allplay.
What are you reading, listening to, or looking at to fuel your work?
I find one of the best ways to fuel my work is to take breaks. It’s taken a lot of time (and episodes of burnout) to learn that pauses are a necessary part of the process. For me, that looks like long, pensive bike rides, trips to obscure antique shops, or game nights with friends.
I’ve also got some really great design-savvy friends to bounce ideas off of. Most recently, I was brainstorming for a board game set in the Roman Empire, which I knew very little about, but knew a friend who’d studied it in University. I was able to pick their brain and come out with a much richer approach to the project, which was far more valuable than any level of image googling.
Lastly, consuming a lot of non-design content is paramount. The more obscure hyperfixations and rabbit holes you get into, the more resources and ideas you have to mentally pull from later. So I play games, both digital and physical (currently it’s The Long Dark, Thousand Year Vampire, Into the Breach), read daily (Earth’s Children series, Southern Reach, Hyperion), and listen to a lot of podcasts (The Chernobyl Podcast about the HBO miniseries, Science Vs., Ologies).
'The Comet' Music Video Tarot Cards
Finally, where can we see more of your work?
Here you can see my portfolio and visit my online shop. You can also follow me on BlueSky and Instagram. Find my Graveyard volunteer work (and some art) under the Instagram account Grave Matters.
Lunar board game art.
Thanks to Alisha Giroux for providing the images for this article.
Parks (2nd Edition) - Josh Emrich: Art in Board Games #72
“Some connect with an illustration because it captures a personal experience, others are drawn to a particular animal, and some simply love the way the sky makes them feel…”
In this board game art interview, I’m speaking to Josh Emrich, an American artist whose work on the Parks (2nd Edition) artwork gives the National Park game a new look.
It was back in 2018 when I first interviewed Josh about his work on Campy Creatures and Caper with Keymaster. Updating a well-loved game like Parks is no easy task, but I think the team has done a stellar job. I’ll leave it to Josh to tell you more about the Parks (2nd Edition) art.
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Hi Josh, welcome back to the site! For anyone new to your work, could you tell us a bit about yourself?
I can’t believe it’s been seven years since we last spoke! Back then, I had just completed my first board game, Campy Creatures, and my design studio, Emrich Office, was primarily focused on branding for the craft beer industry.
Since then, I’ve added a few more game titles to my portfolio, but the biggest shift has been in our clientele. While we’ve retained a single craft brewing client — Bottle Logic Brewing — we’ve transitioned to building brand style guides and developing creative work for the entertainment industry.
We’ve been fortunate to collaborate with dream clients like Disney, Nickelodeon, Netflix, and TNT/TBS. Much of this growth stemmed from the storytelling ability and diverse skill set we honed through our work in both craft brewing and board games.
But to answer your question, I’m primarily a graphic designer and illustrator, though I tend to avoid strict labels because I love working across different creative disciplines. Ultimately, I love creating experiences that bring people together in the real world. I especially enjoy creating things that help people connect with themselves and with others, which is probably why board games have been such a natural fit for me.
Parks 2E - Photography by Kovray
You’re the artistic lead for Parks (Second Edition). What were your first thoughts when considering this project?
When the license for the 59 Parks artwork in the original Parks game ended, Keymaster approached me to help reimagine Parks for a new generation of players.
At first, I was hesitant — it was a massive undertaking with big shoes to fill. But as we discussed the game’s future and the creative possibilities, I became excited about the opportunity to explore the natural world in a new way. Much of my work is rooted in pop culture, so shifting my focus to the breathtaking landscapes of the National Parks was a refreshing and inspiring challenge.
Parks (Second Edition) looks stunning. How did your existing relationship with Keymaster Games help with the work?
Thank you! That really means a lot, especially coming from someone who appreciates the aesthetic details of board games.
My relationship with Keymaster Games, the publisher of Parks, goes back nearly nine years—which is a long time in the creative industry. Over that time, we’ve built a lot of trust in each other. We previously collaborated on Campy Creatures and Caper: Europe, along with other behind-the-scenes projects.
Caper Europe - Photo by Ross Connell
I’m a huge fan of the original 59 Parks artists and the artwork licensed for the first edition of Parks. Keymaster’s internal design team also played a crucial role, adapting the 59 Parks artwork and crafting the game’s overall visual language — some of which built on our work for Campy Creatures and Caper, especially in the wood grain textures and typography.
There was no way I could match their combined talents, nor would I try. Thankfully, I had an incredible team that included the original Parks developers — creative director Mattox Shuler, game designer Henry Audubon, and game producer Jen Graham-Macht — along with my co-illustrator Lisk Feng and graphic designer Seth Nickerson.
What areas for improvement did you identify when evaluating the first edition?
As much as we loved the first game, Keymaster and I wanted to offer something distinct while still honoring the beauty of the national parks and enhancing gameplay. We focused on three key opportunities. Optimizing the artwork & readability, creating a unified artistic vision, and evolving the game’s identity. Since we were starting from scratch, we could design the artwork specifically for the game and include all 63 National Parks.
Parks 2E - Photography by Kovray
Is there an advantage to using art created specifically for board games?
The original 59 Parks artwork began as 18” x 24” posters, meaning fine details and contrast were often lost when scaled down to playing cards. For the new edition, I tailored the illustrations to maintain just the right level of detail, contrast, and readability for the card format.
We also considered various lighting conditions—whether a well-lit kitchen table or a lantern-lit campsite—and improved readability by incorporating larger, crisper fonts, more distinctive icons, and brighter, high-contrast colors.
Parks 2E - Photography by Kovray
The first edition of Parks featured artwork with a wide variety of styles. Did anything in particular inspire your new approach?
For Parks (Second Edition), it was just Lisk Feng and I handling the illustrations, allowing us to create a more cohesive visual experience. I drew inspiration from three artists known for their ability to capture landscapes with striking simplicity and depth:
Eyvind Earle (an artist famous for his work on Disney’s Sleeping Beauty)—his serigraph prints capture light and shadow cascading over hills, iconic trees, and a sophisticated sense of space and color.
Gordon Mortensen—a reduction woodcut print artist whose work conveys undulating wildflowers, shifting weather, and layered depth that immerses viewers in the landscape.
Ray Morimura—a Japanese woodcut artist known for his unique perspectives and rhythmic compositions, such as lily pads dotting a pond or birds in flight.
How did reimagining the art present an opportunity to evolve Parks’ identity for the second edition?
Every game’s theme offers a distinct point of view that shapes the player’s experience and adds meaning to the mechanics — this, in turn, defines the game’s “brand.” The original Parks evoked a cozy, nostalgic feel inspired by WPA-era National Park posters, dark wood grains, and muted colors.
For the second edition, we wanted to emphasize a more modern sense of adventure, wonder, and awe in nature. To achieve this, we drew inspiration from the bold, energetic aesthetic of the 1980s and ’90s outdoor brands, which are seeing a resurgence today. This design direction is reflected in elements like the hiker, resource, and wildlife tokens, the new player mats featuring canteens and backpacks, the gear cards with modern outdoor equipment, and the topographic textures and fonts throughout the game.
Ultimately, this approach created a more cohesive and distinctive design, giving Parks a fresh aesthetic that not only enhances this edition but also sets the stage for future games in the Parks lineup.
Parks 2E - Photography by Kovray
The new edition of Parks features 63 iconic locations. What is your process when handling such a substantial list?
Like the nerds we are, my wife and creative partner, Katie, and I researched every park and compiled our findings into a massive spreadsheet. We cataloged iconic features, flora, fauna, unique seasons, and notable weather events, as well as notable activities. From there, we grouped the parks into six major categories: Deserts, Mountain West, Alaskan/Northern, Coastal, Geological Wonders, and Forests.
This approach allowed me to tackle the illustrations in manageable batches, grouping parks with similar ecosystems or features. As I worked through each batch, it became easier to ensure distinctiveness by varying the time of day, season, landscape focus, or highlighting different wildlife and human activities. The larger guiding questions I asked myself were:
What is the most iconic feature of this park, and is it the most striking example of its kind in the National Parks?
If not, what’s the next best thing, or can I depict it in a unique way?
How can I capture a sense of awe and wonder — something visitors might experience under the right conditions?
Many of the U.S. National Parks share similar geographic features. Was there consideration taken to ensure they all felt unique?
Sometimes, I feel compelled to feature an obvious landmark — like Delicate Arch in Arches or Old Faithful with bison in Yellowstone — because they’re the best-known representations of those parks, and people expect to see them. Other times, a park may be famous for a particular feature, but a more dramatic example of that feature exists elsewhere.
A good example is Wind Cave: it has the longest cave system in the U.S., and American bison roam its hills. However, Mammoth Cave and Carlsbad Caverns are visually more striking, and the largest and oldest bison herd is found in Yellowstone. Instead, I chose to depict Wind Cave’s rolling hills at sunset with an American elk, an animal I hadn’t yet featured in another park illustration.
How important was accuracy when depicting the National Parks?
Unlike many board game themes, Parks is set in real places — we can’t invent mountain ranges or alter the shape of a waterfall; everything must be grounded in reality. Ideally, we’d visit every park for firsthand reference, but that would be a costly and time-consuming endeavor (though we’d love to do it!).
Instead, we relied on reference photos — many of which are taken from the same vantage points. Often, that’s simply the only place photographers can stand without risking a fall, damaging native plants, or encountering an unfriendly bear.
The US National Parks hold a special place in the hearts of many, but do you have any personal favorites?
One of the things I’ve really enjoyed about this game is hearing which National Park illustrations resonate with people. Some connect with an illustration because it captures a personal experience, others are drawn to a particular animal, and some simply love the way the sky makes them feel.
For me, Rocky Mountain National Park holds a special place in my heart because of my Uncle Dave. He was one of my biggest supporters in becoming a professional artist—attending my art shows and buying my paintings even when they didn’t exactly go with his decor. When I moved from Indiana to Colorado after college to pursue better career opportunities, he encouraged me every step of the way.
Josh & Dave - Rocky Mountains National Park - 2005
Josh’s Uncle Dave in the Rocky Mountain National Park 2005
Eventually, when Katie and I decided to get married in Colorado, Uncle Dave came out for the wedding, fell in love with the state, and bought a house in Estes Park—right on the doorstep of RMNP. Having family nearby was incredible, and we often met up for hikes. Uncle Dave was deeply involved in RMNP, volunteering as a “Road Hog” and Hikemaster guide for the YMCA.
When my sister and her husband visited, he’d take us on epic hikes — whether summiting Longs Peak (the tallest in RMNP at 14,256 ft.) or traversing Flattop Mountain along the Continental Divide, descending by glissading down Andrews Glacier. One of my favorite experiences was snowshoeing through the park in the winter when the crowds were gone, and we could walk across frozen lakes to take in spectacular views.
Sadly, Uncle Dave passed away unexpectedly a few years ago, and working on Parks became a way to honor him. I know he would have loved it. That’s why, on the RMNP card, you’ll find a special tribute — Uncle Dave leading the way as we snowshoe across Lake Helene, beneath Flattop Mountain, Ptarmigan Point, and Notchtop.
Thank you for sharing this story with us Josh.
Josh and Dave, Snowshoeing through the Rocky Mountain National Park Artwork - Parks Second Edition
Final Card Art for the Rocky Mountain National Park card - Parks Second Edition
Last time we spoke, you were reading the Wildwood book series to your kids. What are you reading, listening to, or looking at to fuel your work at the moment?
Yes! I’m really looking forward to Laika’s stop-motion adaptation of Wildwood—hopefully later this year! Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about how the virtual world—smartphones, social media, pornography, dating apps, video games, online betting, and AI—is shaping our mental health and ability to connect meaningfully in the real world.
As a father of teenagers now, this is especially top of mind. Jonathan Haidt’s The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness has profoundly reshaped how I think about my own relationship with technology. It’s a must-read for any parent looking to set healthy boundaries for their kids.
At the same time, my work relies on a deep understanding of people. Art is my primary language, but to create meaningfully, I need to see and know others on a deeper level. That’s why I’ve been reading How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen by David Brooks.
He argues that “the act of seeing another person is profoundly creative”—a sentiment that resonates with me. How do we look someone in the eye and recognize something larger in them, and in turn, in ourselves? That’s the kind of connection I strive for in both my life and my work.
To better appreciate how cohesive the new art feels, I turned the cards into this GIF - Ross Connell
Finally, where can we see more of your work?
Keymaster and I have more games slated for release in 2026. I’m working on some fun projects for Disney Parks, but I can’t share details at this point. We continually create new label art for Bottle Logic Brewing, and each release is part of a larger story, almost like a serialized graphic novel. The best way to follow these projects is on my Instagram @emrichoffice.
Thanks to Josh Emrich for providing the images for this article and Kovray for the wonderful photography.
If you are curious to play Parks (2nd Edition) it is now available to buy, or play online at Board Game Arena.
Deep Regrets - Judson Cowan: Art in Board Games #70
“There are some really, really weird things in the ocean. One of the most difficult parts of filling my fictional sea with life was coming up with fake fish that were more terrifying or bizarre than the real fish..”
In this board game art interview, I’m speaking to Judson Cowan, a designer, artist, and publisher whose work brings the Deep Regrets artwork, filled me with both excitement and terror.
About five years ago, I backed a game on Kickstarter called Hideous Abominations. In the game, you are presented with a carnival of body parts and, as a mad scientist, are tasked with combining them to create your own monsters. I love a macabre theme, but what drew me in was the playful artwork.
Today’s guest designed and illustrated Hideous Abominations, and he’s back with a brand new game! Here’s Judson to shed light on the Deep Regrets art and game design!
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Thanks for joining us, Judson! Could you tell us a bit about yourself?
Thanks for having me! I am all over the place. Professionally and mentally. Obviously, I’m a board game designer, but that’s been new to me in the last four years. I’m a musician, an illustrator, a graphic designer, a photographer, a filmmaker, a gamer, a climber, a horror fanatic - I like being able to do and try everything (except sports, I could not give two shits about sports).
Weirdly, I’ve never really liked calling myself any of those things. I’m just a person who does things; I do some things more than others. I feel like avoiding being put into a specific bucket is an important part of my personal brand.
“I once designed a blimp for Conan O’Brien.”
BORING RECAP OF CAREER: I’m originally from the States and studied design and photography at uni in North Carolina. I worked for about a decade in the ad industry as an art director in Atlanta, Georgia. I once designed a blimp for Conan O’Brien. I’ve always had a side hustle of doing music for commercials and games, most notably Ben10 and Rogue Legacy, respectively.
And I’ve made a name for myself in the Soulsborne community doing maps and fan art of the video game Dark Souls. Before I moved into board game design, I spent about a decade in-house at Skyscanner, where I was a creative director and people manager.
Forgive an obvious question, but what comes first, theme or mechanics?
Theme and mechanics are so intrinsically linked I have trouble considering them individually. Take Deep Regrets, for example: the first time I thought about it, I already knew that I wanted a horror fishing game that featured heavy push-your-luck mechanics, dice used for strength, multiple depths and shoals, and a strong focus on exploration and discovery.
I developed the visual style, the theme, and the gameplay all simultaneously. I was even thinking about what the trailer, marketing, and box would all look like and how they would tie together the first day I started working on the game – I’m designing an end-to-end experience, not just a game. So, what comes first? The experience comes first. And theme and mechanics both serve the experience.
There’s a Maya Angelou quote I really like:
“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
That’s how I think designing games should be approached: how do I want to make people feel? And how do I use theming and mechanics to create those emotions?
What is your attraction to SPOOKY STUFF when it comes to theme?
I’m just a SPOOKY GUY, I guess! I’ve always been obsessed with spooky stuff. I grew up making haunted houses for trick-or-treaters in my front yard. I was weaned on Scooby-Doo, Gremlins, Ghostbusters, and Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. And I’ve honestly just never weaned off. All my favorite things are horror - movies, books, games.
I actually spent a season moonlighting at Netherworld in Atlanta, scaring people professionally. I once scared the rapper Bow Wow! He always brings his crew through the haunt every year.
The first game I designed was about building and running your own haunted attraction called Fright House. It’s a forever project that may never be finished, but I really hope to come back to it at some point; it’s very close to my heart!
You are the designer, graphic designer, and illustrator of your games. What are the advantages of doing it all?
There are a few advantages, but I think the most important one is velocity. Because I don’t have many external dependencies, I can move very quickly. I know what I’m trying to achieve, and I can get there very quickly because I’m not waiting on someone else to pass back design/art/development work.
The other key one is control. Coming back to this idea of crafting experiences, being able to control every aspect of that experience provides a very “auteur” approach. I hope that you can feel a lot more of my personality in my games than you might in games made by larger teams since I’m very carefully controlling every aspect of it.
The downsides are equally important: you don’t have a team to bounce ideas off of, you work in relative isolation, and you’re a huge bottleneck for your projects. I’ve tried to balance these negatives a bit by moving into a shared office space with other board game designers, so I have people working in the same discipline nearby at all times to chat with and get support from!
As a one-person studio, how important is playtesting and feedback?
I learned the importance of user research and feedback in my corporate life, and I brought that mentality with me to board game design. Here, user research is just playtesting, and it’s critical to making good games.
You can always tell when a game didn’t go through the proper amount of testing or was only tested by close friends and family who were too polite to give it the proper dressing-down it required.
I have a dedicated group of playtesters that I trust and work with a lot, but I also try to attend meetups and go to board game cafes and such to play with people I don’t know. Plus, looking for localisation partners gives a lot of very diverse feedback from very different cultures as publishers play your game to see if it's a good fit for their catalogue.
It’s important to get a variety of perspectives and consider how you’ll implement that feedback into your game.
In an early version of the game, madness was a universal scale - it did the same things, but it affected all players unilaterally. This was quite cool because it meant you could put pressure on other players and decrease the value of their fish. The downside was that Regrets didn’t do much. They drove up the global madness when acquired, but the only other effect they had was to force the player with the most to lose their most valuable fish.
In playtesting, the feedback I got was that Regret cards felt meaningless and extraneous. Ultimately, that feedback encouraged me to part with the idea of a global madness track in favor of individual player madness tracks. I lost a bit of “take-that” in favor of greater player agency and greater thematic integration of the Regret concept, and the game is much stronger for it!
In your opinion, what are the crucial elements of good graphic design?
If you’re familiar with Dieter Rams, the German industrial designer, he has a philosophy I really like: as little design as possible. Design serves a function, and extraneous design elements should be removed wherever possible.
When he was working, he had a very clean, minimalist approach. That approach is not correct for (most) board games. The “as possible” quantifier in the “as little design as possible” is super important - a lot more elements are required in board game designs to help with comprehension, engagement, and entertainment.
Often, things that serve a strictly aesthetic purpose ARE necessary in designing board games because, again, you’re designing an experience, and those design elements can enhance that experience. That’s still essential design.
I do think there’s a balance to be struck. I think a lot of games get overly decorative and detailed and it starts to be a bit like typing in all caps. An individual card might look nice when viewed up close, but the table viewed from afar starts to look like a bowl of rocks. There’s no discernable focal point. I wish more designers considered the entire board state as one composition when designing.
Squint at a photo of Everdell, then squint at a photo of Brass Birmingham. Both have strong illustration and design elements, but Everdell considered how it would be viewed at a distance, and Brass did not.
Everdell is recognisable from across the room because of its contrasty elements and unique forms - everything works beautifully together and stands apart from one another. Let’s just ignore the big annoying cardboard tree, which is a design decision that I think Dieter Rams would absolutely chuck in the furnace. It actively worsens the gaming experience and is just there as a gimmick. That’s not essential design.
What is your method for creating art? Are you digital or analog?
I love physical media and I love working with my hands. All of my illustrations start in ink. I do colour digitally on an iPad in Procreate, but I try to keep a tangible hand-touched element to each one.
I think working in ink forces a nice acceptance of imperfection. Watching people draw on an iPad is fascinating because they’ll draw and erase a line 10 times before they get one they like. With ink, you get one shot. You have to commit.
I like the way that forces you to accept the decision your hand made and move on instead of striving for some fictional perfection.
You can always redraw but I generally try to avoid this as much as possible. I might redo my pencils a few times before I get an outline I’m happy with, but once I move to ink, I usually stick with my first pass, except in rare circumstances. Another creative philosophy I really like is Miles Davis: he thought spontaneity and expression were more important than perfection.
I also like that it creates physical artifacts. I have all these folders of ink drawings and I’ve started selling them as part of my Kickstarters and on my site. That really resonates with people! Owning a physical part of a game’s creation process is something people find a lot of value in!
Deep Regrets features a monstrous deck of creatures. Where did the inspiration come from for the over 100 unique fish in the game?
50% of them are real things, it’s an even split of fair (real) and foul (fake) fish. I did a tremendous amount of research to find a mix of interesting fish and to learn about their anatomy and behaviour to help inform their mechanics.
I think my office mates got tired of me saying things like “did you know Pacific Islanders used to sacrifice Giant Trevally in place of humans?” or “did you know garfish have green skeletons??”
There are some really, really weird things in the ocean. One of the most difficult parts of filling my fictional sea with life was coming up with fake fish that were more terrifying or bizarre than the real fish. I wound up utilising the uncanny valley quite a bit! Making fish more human-like made them far more disturbing. Lots of fingers, big white eyeballs, that sort of thing.
In fact, one of the most disturbing fish in the game is the “human” you can catch at depth III. It just makes no sense that he’s down there, and that’s terrifying. And you can eat him to refresh the dice.
Do you have a favorite piece of art you created for Deep Regrets?
I just love Frod. He’s the first character I designed and he encapsulates the feel of the game so well. Lovecraft, but goofy.
Scooby and the gang investigate Innsmouth. I love him so much that he became the Automa opponent in the upcoming Buttonshy version of the game Shallow Regrets.
Any advice for someone considering creating and publishing their own game?
Just f***ing go for it. There’s plenty of good advice I could give you, but I’m a big believer in letting people make their own mistakes and learn from them. You won’t nail it on the first try, you’ll struggle, you’ll stumble along the way, but all of that will craft you into something interesting, and you’ll make better games for it.
What are you reading, listening to, or looking at to fuel your work?
I’m a big horror film fan, I probably pull the majority of my inspiration from that world. One that really set my imagination ablaze was Annihilation, so much so that I watched about four times and then bought and read the entire Southern Reach trilogy because I was hungry to explore more of that absolutely bizarre world. I need to pick up the fourth book!
Some of my favorite horror flicks from the last few years are, in no particular order, When Evil Lurks, The Vourdalak, Late Night with the Devil, Long Legs, In a Violent Nature, Barbarian, Oddity, and Hold Your Breath (full transparency, I did the credits for that one).
Finally, where can we see more of your work?
You can find me on Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky, or you can visit my website tettixgames.com!
All images provided by Judson Cowan.
Confusing Lands - Zak Eidsvoog: Art in Board Games #69
“I got my first couple of board game clients after I did a self-directed fan redesign project where I made new art and graphic design for a game I really love..”
In this board game art interview, I’m speaking to Zak Eidsvoog, an American artist and game designer whose work on the Confusing Lands artwork caught my eye. I get a huge amount of joy from discovering new (to me) artists and I hope you enjoy discovering his work as much as I did.
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Thanks for joining us, Zak! Could you tell us a bit about yourself?
Hi, thanks for having me! I’m a graphic designer, illustrator, and game designer (although I never know which order to put those in, haha). I was born in the Seattle area but grew up mostly in Portland, Oregon, where I now live with my wife and our dog, Kodi.
Pretty much all of my current creative pursuits began in college (in the early 2010s), where, after a couple of years of studying mechanical engineering, I decided to switch majors to graphic design with a minor in visual art. This was also around the time I got into hobby board gaming and started experimenting with game design myself.
A couple of years after graduating, I started freelancing for some indie board game publishers as a graphic designer and illustrator while working on my own game designs on the side. I’ve been doing all that for a little over 10 years now.
I’ve always had a balance of game and non-game-related clients, but at this point, I’ve worked on 20+ client games in some capacity as a graphic designer/illustrator. As for my games, I have a handful that I’ve released myself as print and play games online, as well as my first published game, Confusing Lands, which was released last year.
Do you have any advice for anyone trying to break into the industry?
My advice for anyone trying to break into any creative field is to start making whatever it is you want to be making professionally (art, graphic design, games, music, whatever). Clients will be more likely to hire you if they can see you have done the kind of thing they are looking for.
If you already have good examples of your work, make sure you’re putting it in front of people who are interested in that kind of thing (have a portfolio site that’s easy to find/navigate, post in bgg forums or on reddit, go to conventions or in-person feedback groups, etc.). Make sure that you’re putting yourself out there and making it easy for people to contact you and get a quote if they’re interested in working with you!
I got my first couple of board game clients after I did a self-directed fan redesign project where I made new art and graphic design for a game I really love (Impulse by Carl Chudyk) and then shared images and some of my process on my portfolio site and on BGG.
Game jams can be another great way to get some experience working on game projects and to make connections with other people interested in games. While there are generally more jams geared towards people who make video games, tabletop game jams are also becoming more common.
With such a broad spectrum of clients, do you have a process for starting new projects?
Whenever I’m doing client graphic design/illustration, my first step is always to interview the client and make sure I understand what the goals for the project are and what makes it unique. Sometimes, there’s room for me to bring some out-of-the-box ideas before settling on something and moving forward.
For those kinds of projects, I’ll do brainstorming exercises, gather visual inspiration, and create mood boards & sketches of potential creative directions. Other times, things are pretty locked in, and it’s just important for me to get up to speed and work with what’s already there.
How does your approach change when working on your own projects?
For my personal game designs, I would say that I’m a mechanics & game-feel first person. Usually, the very first test I do with an idea is to take as many blank cards or other components as I think the game will have and practice shuffling and dealing and moving things around, imagining how the game will feel to the players.
I tend to design my early prototypes in a somewhat abstract, themeless style to keep things flexible as I test out ideas. Laying things out this way helps me avoid getting carried away with the visuals before the gameplay is solid. Once I have something I like, I’ll either start showing it to publishers or, if it’s something I’m planning to develop myself, I will do my usual process of brainstorming, moodboarding, and pitching myself art and graphic design styles, as if I were doing a client project.
How important do you think the art is when pitching games?
Unless you’re designing something where the art is a fundamental part of the gameplay mechanics (like Dixit or Mysterium), I don’t think art is all that important when pitching games. I’ve heard from most publishers that I’ve talked to that the most important thing is that prototype components be clearly laid out and easy to understand/play with.
Keep in mind that some publishers may like your game but have a different theme they want to publish it with, or they might have specific artists they like to work with whose art style more closely matches their brand.
With all that being said, because I am an artist and a game designer, I will sometimes have ideas that I choose to develop in a more holistic way (with the art informing the game design and vice versa). When that happens, I think it’s ok to embrace doing both art and design, knowing that things might need to change later or you might end up going more in the direction of self publishing. This was essentially what happened with my game Confusing Lands although I was lucky enough to find a publisher whose vision for the game was pretty aligned with what I had already done myself.
Confusing Lands has a whimsical, lighthearted art style. Where did the idea for this board game come from?
‘Confusing Lands’ was one of three 18-card games I designed between 2020 and 2022 during the first few years of the Covid 19 pandemic. The other two are ‘Double Date Simulator’ (available as a print-and-play game on my itch page at zak-makes-games.itch.io) and ‘Solitairra’ an as-yet-unreleased solitaire game.
Like most of my games, Confusing Lands started with a very simple, somewhat abstract art style. However, even from the beginning, I imagined a lush landscape with rules that would prompt players to build very different ecosystems from game to game. As I developed the game more, the mechanic of stacking things on top of each other — as well as the random shapes formed by the cards — led me to think it could be a game about wacky floating island chains.
What does Confusing Lands art tell us about its world?
My initial goal for the art in Confusing Lands was to find a style that would look really pretty once players had finished gathering and placing cards to complete their landscapes. I first explored a more painterly style, thinking that it would add to that lush, picturesque feeling I was going for.
However, because the art serves such an important functional purpose in the game (it’s how players tell what type of terrain a given space counts as), I quickly found that I needed an approach that would make each space’s terrain type stand out more clearly.
This led me to the final art style for the game, where each terrain type has a bold outline and a specific color associated with it. After testing out this more cartoonish style, I was pleased to find that the final landscapes still look quite pretty, with the added benefit of being easily readable.
As for the world of Confusing Lands, I knew from the beginning that I wanted the game to depict the harmony between all the different elements within the game’s world (plants, animals, people, etc.). I do think the bright, cartoonish style that I ended up using helps give a sense of positivity and symbiosis to the world which people find appealing.
You’ve mentioned you’re mechanics first when designing games. Did you draw any inspiration from other games when creating Confusing Lands?
Gameplay-wise, Confusing Lands was inspired by a number of tile/card-laying games, most directly Micro Rome, Tiny Islands (digital) and Isle of Skye. All of these give players scoring conditions to influence tile placement but I wanted to see what would happen if the scoring conditions themselves were part of the tiles/cards and therefore a larger part of the players’ decision making process. When I designed Confusing Lands, I was also playing a lot of Lost Cities, and I wanted my game to capture some of the tension of committing to new scoring opportunities in that game.
After testing out several different approaches, I settled on the system where each scoring condition you take subtracts 10 points from your final score. This sometimes means that players will score in the negatives after their first game, but I’ve found that adds to the charm and usually makes them want to try again and improve. The name Confusing Lands is kind of my way of saying, “Don’t feel bad about your first score; it’s supposed to be confusing!”
What are you reading, listening to, or looking at to fuel your work?
I’m currently reading “Masters of Atlantis” by Charles Portis (author of True Grit). It’s a fictional account of a secret society founded in the early 20th century and it has been a super fun read so far. I also recently read the Earthsea books by Ursula K. Le Guin for the first time, which really had an impact on how I think about life and art in general. A couple of great art books I picked up recently are “Umbra” by Jordan Speer and “Houses with a Story” by Seiji Yoshida.
Comics-wise I’ve been following the webcomic “3rd Voice” by Evan Dahm, as well as anything that Simon Roy puts out. Pretty much the only TV show I watch these days is Taskmaster, but as a game designer I find it very inspiring and enjoyable (my wife and I are eagerly awaiting the next season). We’ve also started renting older/foreign movies from the library and two really great ones we saw recently were After Life (1998) and Petite Maman (2021).
Besides all that, I find a lot of inspiration in nature, especially going on hikes in the Columbia River Gorge or along the Oregon coast. My wife is a singer and we have a lot of friends in the performing arts, which I’m super grateful for. Being part of a community of people working to make art always inspires me to keep working on my own projects.
Finally, where can we see more of your work?
You can find me at zakeidsvoog.com and on pretty much all the socials at @zakeidsvoog, although Bluesky is probably where I’m most active these days. You can also find my personal games that are available for print and play at zak-makes-games.itch.io. Lastly, if newsletters are more your thing, you can sign up for mine at zak-makes-games.beehiiv.com/subscribe for occasional updates on the art and game design stuff I’m working on.
All images provided by Zak Eidsvoog.
Fame & Fable - Owen Davey: Art in Board Games #68
“Fame and Fable draws inspiration from folktales, mythology, classic and modern fantasy, and popular culture. It’s a love letter to all of those influences, but it also keeps things light and approachable…”
In this board game art interview, I’m speaking to Owen Davey, a British game designer and illustrator whose work brings the Fame & Fable board game captured my imagination.
If you’ve visited my site before, you might notice it’s been a while since my last interview. This site has always been a passion project of mine, and I’m excited to return in 2025 with new interviews.
In the first of the new series, I’m joined by Owen Davey, an artist and designer who has created a new board game, Fame & Fable. Enjoy our conversation below.
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For more great insights into board game art, check out the interview archive.
Fame and Fable - Board Game Cover Art
Thanks for joining us, Owen! Could you tell us a bit about yourself?
Thanks for having me. I'm a father of three kids and a freelance illustrator based in Worthing, UK. I've been working professionally as an artist for nearly 16 years now. I work across the whole industry really, regularly working in publishing, advertising, editorial, apps, packaging and teaching.
Where might we have seen your work?
I've worked with clients including Google, Disney, National Geographic, WWF, London Zoo and more. I like the variety it brings to my day-to-day work life. I've also had more than 40 books published, many of which I authored - often non-fiction and focusing on animals and nature.
With such a broad spectrum of clients, do you have a first step for new projects?
Research - it is pretty essential for my process. I have to explore whatever brief I've got, try to understand it in as much depth as I can, and then try to find inspiration within that. Often if I get stuck for ideas, research can dig me out of that hole - the world is a fascinating place with many topics that appeal to me, so I generally just follow my curiosity.
One of the things that I love about being an illustrator is that nobody else would create something in the same way as me - all my influences and interests are wrapped up in each project, so my experiences and my life shape a lot of what I create. That research to curiosity to inspiration process pipeline is where a lot of that stems from.
Fame & Fable board game on the table
‘Fame and Fable’ looks gorgeous. What made you want to create your own board game?
I've been a lifelong board game enthusiast, but over the past several years, I’ve fully immersed myself in the hobby side of it. It’s no longer just about the classic family staples or traditional card games; I’ve developed a deep love for in-depth thematic games that can easily steal hours of your time.
After the lockdowns in 2020, I felt an even stronger urge to step away from screens and spend more time with friends. That’s when I started engaging in regular game sessions — sometimes packed with a variety of short games, and other times devoted to tackling one sprawling epic.
Owen Davey - D&D Character Art - Anara
I’ve also started playing more solo games, but my favorite part of the day is still unwinding with my partner in the evening. Once the kids are asleep and the house is tidied up, we dive into a game together — it’s become such an important ritual. During lockdown, I was also part of a Dungeons & Dragons group and eventually took on the role of Dungeon Master. I poured so much energy into it, homebrewing everything from NPCs and monsters to items and locations.
I became obsessed with not just describing the world but illustrating it too, so my players could better visualize the adventures. When someone else took over as DM, I found myself left with a treasure trove of artwork and no clear purpose for it all. That’s when I decided to combine my passions for fantasy, board games, and illustration to create something new. Years later, that passion project has grown into Fame and Fable.
Fame and Fable Board Game Prototype
Fame and Fable’s world feels unique while paying tribute to classic fantasy tropes. Where did your inspiration come from?
Fame and Fable draws inspiration from folktales, mythology, classic and modern fantasy, and popular culture. It’s a love letter to all of those influences, but it also keeps things light and approachable. The tone is playful, blending the grand, folkloric feel of epic tales with humor and a sense of fun—something that will feel right at home for anyone familiar with the TTRPG space.
What is the central hook for the player’s place within the world?
The game's lore centres on a realm overrun by monsters wreaking havoc across the land. Your mission is to gather allies and items to confront these threats head-on. In solo mode, the game introduces six key locations, each delving into classic terrains often explored in fantasy works. Fame and Fable aims to strike a balance between something familiar and new, offering a fresh perspective on beloved fantasy tropes while remaining rooted in the joy of storytelling.
Fame and Fable - Monsters
Fame and Fable features over 150 unique artworks, which, let's be frank, is a lot. How did that happen?
The game grew in scale over time. I had some artwork from my D&D campaign, but there was so much more I wanted to include. I wanted a wide range of card types and abilities for replayability, and that just kept expanding. No complaints, though—I loved it. I’m still illustrating potential characters and monsters for possible Kickstarter stretch goals and maybe even future expansions.
With a list of illustrations that long, what was your process for creating it all?
With anything this massive, it’s all about taking one step at a time. Thinking about 170 artworks from scratch feels impossible, but aiming for 20 more in a month? That’s doable. Breaking it down into smaller, achievable goals kept it from becoming overwhelming. Logistically, I had spreadsheets constantly updated to keep everything balanced and these big mega-files where all the final artworks were stored. I also have a habit of keeping every old version, so I probably have hundreds of Illustrator files.
My ideas usually come at the most random times—falling asleep, washing up—so I jot them down on my phone and later turn them into research. That research mixes with a healthy dose of imagination before making its way onto the page (or, more recently, the iPad).
Sketching is the easiest part for me—I've made a career out of drawing, so that part feels natural. The iPad lets me be loose with the process. I can swap out heads, try new outfits, or even randomly turn a character into a duck. No rules, just the rule of cool.
This whole project is about play, from how I created it to how it’ll be used, and the artwork reflects that. Once I’m happy with a sketch, I bring it into Illustrator to create the final lines digitally. Then I add colour using a restricted global palette—this keeps everything cohesive while also saving time since I don’t have to build a new palette for each piece. Each artwork takes at least a couple of hours, but some took much longer because they were trickier to get right.
Parents will never admit to having a favorite child, but do you have a favorite piece of art you created for this game?
I really like The Cursed—she’s got these epic muscles, cool braided hair, and a big flaming sword. Total badass. But I also love The Shepherd, who’s the complete opposite—he’s got a wide-brimmed hat and looks kind of like a sheep. I enjoy flipping those roles.
A lot of the cards have little hidden details inspired by research. The Shepherd has only one central eye, which is a nod to The Odyssey—Polyphemus, the cyclops in Homer’s tale, was a shepherd, so that felt like a fun connection.
Mechanically, The Cursed is a fan favourite because she can sacrifice herself to deal massive damage, while The Shepherd is great for annoying your friends since he collects their exhausted cards. My favourite part of this whole process has been designing cards that feel thematic—I really want the storytelling aspect to shine through in the game.
How is creating board games different from your other work?
It's an interesting task having to Art Direct yourself. I love working with my regular clients but it was really fun to allow my creativity to run wild. The difficulty is that there's nobody to sign it off. I have to decide if it's done or not and whether it works. I've definitely leant on friends throughout this process to help me check if things are actually cool, or maybe don't work as well as I thought they did in my head. The game wouldn't exist as it is now without their invaluable insights.
Fame & Fable Meeples
Have there been any particular challenges in creating your first board game?
There was a massive learning curve in figuring out how to design a game. I quickly realised that just because a mechanic works, it doesn't mean it’s fun. And because of the type of game Fame and Fable is, where each card works slightly differently, it meant that a LOT of playtesting was needed.
Each card has to make sense to multiple people and be as devoid of misinterpretation as possible. I was definitely not aware of how much work it would be to make my own game, but I've genuinely loved every second of it. I can't wait to build expansions for this game and develop other ideas I've had.
Owen Davey - Fame and Fable Card Art
What are you reading, listening to, or looking at to fuel your work?
I've just finished rereading another one of the Brain Jacques Redwall books - Martin the Warrior - and now I'm delving into Brandon Sanderson's 'Mistborn' - I'm loving the lore of the Allomancy. I've also been listening to various history podcasts, which often spark me to go research something I'd never known about before, from a certain type of weapon to a war I'd never heard about. I've been watching Hilda and Scavenger's Reign on Netflix - both of these have incredible world-building and just happen to be stunning visually.
Do you have any advice for anyone wanting to work as an artist?
Meet deadlines. Make awesome work. Check contracts. Look after yourself. Get yourself out there and show your work to your audience or the people that might commission you.
Owen Davey - Fame and Fable Board Game
Finally, where can we find you to see more of your work?
The best place to find more stuff about Fame and Fable is to follow me on Instagram at @fameandfable or sign up to the Kickstarter prelaunch page where you'll be notified about when the game launches - there are some early bird treats, so definitely back early to make the most of them.
Owen Davey - Fame & Fable - Group Art
All images provided by Owen Davey
Hedge Lord - Timbrook Toys: Art in Board Games #65
“The appeal of handmade products is that each item has special details which reveal the hand that made it.Working with irregular surfaces results in the kind of printing imperfections that distinguishes handmade art from mass-production… “
Welcome to issue 65 of my series sharing the stories behind board game art. This week, I wanted to bring to your attention a small company called Timbrook Toys, which is creating handmade games in Huntsville, Alabama. This project made me feel nostalgic for a bygone era, and I want to see more games like this in the modern era. I hope you enjoy this interview and a small insight into their work.
For more great insights into board game art, be sure to check out the interview archive.
Hi Dustin/Molly, thanks for joining me! For our readers who aren't aware of your work could you tell us a bit about yourself and what you do?
Dustin - Thanks for featuring us on your blog, Ross! I’m an artist who has lived in Huntsville, Alabama for a little over a decade now. I’ve worked professionally in a lot of creative fields during that time, including a lot of social media marketing and video production. A big part of what drew me to live in Huntsville is our local arts venue, Lowe Mill ARTS & Entertainment, which is actually the largest privately-owned studio art facility in the US. Being a part of this diverse creative community has been a highlight of my life. Outside of making art, my favorite pastime is probably watching British murder mysteries with Molly and our dogs.
Hedge Lord - top down view of game components
Molly - I've known since I was little that I wanted to write for a living. I'm a technical writer at one of Huntsville's many tech companies; my background in technical writing really informed how we wrote the instructions for Hedge Lord. As an aside, while Huntsville does have a burgeoning arts scene, Huntsville is more commonly known as "the Rocket City" or, sometimes, "the Silicon Valley of the South;" many technologies that got humans into space were developed by NASA in Huntsville and the city has attracted technology companies ever since. In my spare time, in addition to watching too many British procedurals with Dustin, I read, bake, and train our deaf dog, Ernest, who we adopted a few months ago.
Hedge Lord - Concept Sketches
Have you always been into games and puzzles?
Dustin - I’ve honestly never been much of a gamer, so it’s surprising to have a game be one of the most popular projects I’ve ever worked on. Molly and I did have a brief phase of being obsessed with the idea of obscure, failed games relegated to thrift store shelves despite being good ideas. The magnet-based game Touche' is one that we found during that time that fits the model. That idea of losing a game to history certainly had some influence on Hedge Lord, which we designed to have the feel of something uncovered from a past era.
Hedge Lord - Game art spread
Molly - Same. I appreciate a good board game, but I wouldn't have called myself a fan of board games until recently. I like how board games can create a kind of community, whether it's only for the duration of the game play or as a regular occurrence over the course of weeks or months as you play a game regularly with friends or family.
Hedge Lord - First game prototype
You've created your own game called Hedge Lord! What is it, and where did the seed of the idea come from?
Molly - Dustin and I were on vacation in Asheville, North Carolina in the fall of 2017. On the drive from Alabama to North Carolina, Dustin talked incessantly about gears. How to make them, how to make things with them, and all the endless possibilities afforded by gears. Eventually, this postulation turned into a line of inquiry along the lines of "What would a gear-based board game look like?"
We visited the Biltmore Estate, while in Asheville, a manor built in the late 1800s and the largest privately owned home in the United States. While touring the Biltmore grounds, we noted how inappropriate it was that for all of its grandeur, the Biltmore did not have a hedge maze. A hedge maze just seems like the kind of finishing touch you need for a palatial manor house. (Dustin is also obsessed with hedge mazes, even more obsessed than he is with gears.)
So, these two ideas collided. We started talking about what a gear-based, hedge maze board game might look like. We created a back story, rules, and characters on the drive back home, and while stopped at a bookstore in Knoxville, Tennessee, I came up with a name for our imaginary game -- Hedge Lord.
We got back into the grind of life when we got back home and I honestly didn't think much about Hedge Lord until I came home to find Dustin fiddling with a paper prototype of the game. From then on, our lives became consumed by developing, testing, and then marketing, selling, and producing Hedge Lord. The gear-based aspect eventually fell by the wayside, but I don't think Hedge Lord is any worse off for it.
Dustin - Like Molly said, I'm just obsessed with hedge mazes. The Jim Henson movie Labyrinth was a huge influence on me as a kid. So was the British stop-motion TV series The Wind in the Willows, which had a great episode where the characters race to solve the hedge maze at Toad Hall. Despite being fascinated by their appearances in TV and movies, I've never actually been in a real hedge maze. If we ever get rich off of this game you can bet we will be establishing one on the grounds of Timbrook Gardens.
Hedge Lord - Early game prototype tests
It sounds like you got well and truly bitten by the design bug. After that first prototype roughly how long were you playtesting the game and what did you learn?
Molly - I think we spent at least three or four months learning how to play the game with a prototype that Dustin made out of copy paper. The circle "hedge pieces" were attached with little brads and the playing pieces were different color beads that had angry faces, for the beasts, and happy faces, for the lords. We made our friends play constantly. The rules didn't change much from what we had in mind in the early days, we talked about it incessantly on vacation, but we did test different ideas, like if the beast should continue playing after the lord has been devoured and when and how the hedge pieces should be turned.
Our friends were really patient to keep playing through every iteration of the rules. Folks really seemed to enjoy the "entrapment" features intrinsic in moving the hedge and some people were frustrated to discover that "camping" their beast near an exit or guarding their lord with their beast were not full-proof paths to victory.
Hedge Lord - game illustrations
Every copy of Hedge Lord is handmade. Could you give us an overview of what goes into creating each one?
Dustin - We wanted these early copies of Hedge Lord to genuinely resemble something manufactured in the early 1900's, so using traditional methods like screen printing and woodworking was a must. Each copy of the game requires a painstaking process that involves 13 stages of screen printing and a lot of time at the drill press. Hopefully soon we will do the milling stage of production with a CNC router, but so far we've made over 100 games the old fashioned way.
Timbrook Toys - Handmade flyer
Hedge Lord - Game flags
We still aren't totally sure how long it takes to make each game because we do things in batches and stages rather than making one game at a time. It's safe to say each game takes 2-3 hours total though. I recently quit my day job to make games and toys full time, so I'm the main person in the shop. Molly still has a day job so she focuses on the matter of running our business and lends a hand in the shop a few hours a week.
Molly - It seems like it might take about thirty hours to produce twelve games, so Dustin's math checks out.
Hedge Lord - printed rules
What is the appeal of creating handmade products and why do you think it's important that people continue to make things this way?
Dustin - The appeal of handmade products is that each item has special details which reveal the hand that made it. I particularly like screen printing projects on wood because every copy that is produced ends up being unique. No two pieces of wood are going to have the same grain pattern, and working with irregular surfaces results in the kind of printing imperfections that distinguishes handmade art from mass-production.
Dustin - With a stack of Hedge Lord game copies
Most copies of our game have some registration errors and places where the wood surface is scarred. As long as the "flaws" in a print don't interfere with anyone's ability to play the game, we consider it a perfect copy. Your copy of Hedge Lord won't be identical to your neighbor's, and that's a good thing!
Hedge Lord - Game Parts
With such a DIY project how have you tried to spread the word about Hedgelord?
Molly - We have been very fortunate that our promotion has been largely organic. Folks seem to like Hedge Lord as much as we do and word spread quickly after we first offered Hedge Lord for sale on Dustin's personal Facebook page. We were approached by Alabama Public Television and the Alabama Media Group as a result of word of mouth promotion and both pieces from both organizations brought Hedge Lord even more attention.
Hedge Lord - Tournament
We've attended events as exhibitors and we've hosted a tournament at a local brewery. Those promotion avenues weren't successful, in terms of sales, but they've been extremely fulfilling in terms of meeting our audience, getting feedback, and sharing some wild games of Hedge Lord.
Dustin - The great thing about board games is that they are shared experiences. Word of mouth marketing is built directly into the product by the very nature of requiring multiple people to play. Since Hedge Lord is fun and people who play it end up wanting their own copy, the game really kind of sells itself.
Hedge Lord - Grid of game lids
What were the goals you set yourselves with this project and how have they changed?
Molly - Hedge Lord is the first of what we hope are many, many board games and toys, but making Hedge Lord takes up most of our time. Our current goal is to find ways to better automate the production of Hedge Lord (right now manufacturing is 95% powered by Dustin) so that we can pursue other ideas, too.
Dustin - In the big picture view we want to develop a whole creative universe around the characters and story of Hedge Lord that takes place outside of the confines of the maze. The business that we hope to build will allow us to focus on design and storytelling through other games, toys, comics, and film. It will be a dream come true to some day hire other artists to help bring our imagined world to life. For the near future though we are buckling down and focusing on making these early edition collectible games.
What are some non-game related creations (books, music, movies, etc) that you’re currently enjoying?
Molly - We watch a lot of murder mystery shows... probably too many. We're enjoying Endeavor (UK) and The Brokenwood Mysteries (NZ) right now. This week, I binge-listened to the podcasts Who the Hell is Hamish and Bear Brook and Dustin has binge-watched Call the Midwife while making games out in the shop.
Spinning top DIY prototypes
Do you have any current projects underway, or coming up that you’d like (or are able) to tell us about?
Dustin - We’ve got more fun hand made products designed and ready to sell once we are further caught up with Hedge Lord production. Simple spinning tops, some colorful magnetic sticks for building with, and a really fun wooden watercolor palette.
Those items are fully developed, but we’ve got other games and toys in the works that still need months of design and testing before they are market-ready. These new products are spin-offs of the aesthetic and story we have established so far with Hedge Lord.
Hedge Lord - Game in play
Finally, if we’d like to see more of you and your work, where can we find you?
Molly - You can visit our website https://timbrook.toys and follow our Facebook and Instagram pages. We post a lot of process and progress videos on Instagram.
All images provided by and copyright of Timbrook toys.
If you’re new to the site, why not stick around a while? There are interviews with some of the best artists in the industry and if you’d like to read more you can them by heading over to the Interview Archive!
Vast: The Mysterious Manor - Nick Brachmann: Art in Board Games #53
If people keep interpreting something "wrong" they may just be right. Its not always worth fighting against human nature. If people keep interpreting something a particular way, see if you can leverage that expectation..
Welcome to Issue 53 in my series sharing the stories behind board game art.
To create truly great board game art, I believe you need to marry it with effective graphic design. So far on this site, I’ve done a good job of covering the illustrations, but graphic design has been sorely ignored. I’d like to change that, and this interview (conducted late last year) is the first of many I’ll be doing to cover this area.
Check out the interview archive for more great insights into board game art.
Vast: The Mysterious Manor - Photography by Ross Connell
Hi Nick, thanks for joining me! For our readers who aren't aware of your work could you tell us a bit about yourself and what you do?
Thanks for having me Ross! I'm a graphic designer living in Hopkins (just outside of the Twin Cities) currently working as a graphic designer for Leder Games! Outside of board games I'm also really passionate about art toys and model making. Lately, I've been trying my hand at making molds and casting my own resin figures and have recently developed an obsession with Gundam models.
How did you find yourself working in the board game industry?
During my education and professional development, I always had in mind I wanted to be involved in tabletop games, but I never really knew what that would entail. I just knew I wanted to be involved in the process. Like many people my friends and I would attempt to make our own games but nothing that made it past the kitchen table. I had a couple interviews at Fantasy Flight Games that didn't go anywhere before I saw a job posting for Leder Games. Patrick and I had a brief back and forth then 2 weeks later he was asking me to start!
Vast: The Mysterious Manor - Photography by Ross Connell
I was originally brought on with the main purpose of making and updating play-test kits for our upcoming title Vast: The Mysterious Manor, but as the position developed it was obvious that I could be more involved. As of late, an average day for me probably includes a meeting with Patrick or Cole discussing rules and developing ideas, then we break off and I’ll go and make any new game assets or changes that we'll need if we're play testing that day. I also may be coordinating with our foreign language partners to answer questions or creating marketing assets for our Sales Manager, Clay. I honestly couldn't have gotten luckier to be so involved in the game creation process - I know most companies don't operate like Leder but I think the process shows in the product.
Vast: The Mysterious Manor - Prototype Set Up
Where was your experience based before joining Leder Games and how did that prepare you for the job?
Outside of freelance projects my largest experience doing graphic design was for a department at the University of Minnesota, where I graduated. I think that job was more stereotypical of what people think when they hear "Graphic Designer". Me and the team would plan new initiatives, create assets for fundraising campaigns, and coordinate with printing services. We operated like a marketing team, and in that setting, the amount of information we needed to communicate was often small as well as being simpler. Because of that, solutions were more varied and we were working on new things constantly.
My position at Leder Games on the other hand, is a combination of graphic designer and usability developer. I'm working on one game at a time where my focus currently is on clarity of information and mechanics. So when I'm designing components like player boards for example, my attention is on effective and clear communication rather than an amazing visual element (after all that’s why we have Kyle Ferrin). I've actually found working like this to be more similar to the work I did while pursuing my product design minor - it's about focusing the design on the person who's going to be using it. There are still similarities as well - our need to iterate rapidly, and quickly tear down and rebuild ideas (prototypes) feels more similar to my time at the university job.
Vast: The Mysterious Manor - Photography by Ross Connell
Based on what you’ve learned so far at Leder, what do you think makes for good graphic design?
For me, its about successful communication of information. The last thing you want a user to experience is not knowing how to interpret what’s in front of them. To put it simply, board games are complicated and its my job to visually minimize that complexity. Compared to designing for advertising or logos, there's much less opportunity or reason to be "clever" and anyone who has done design stuff knows what I mean when I say "clever". Board game graphic design isn't the place for a logo that has two images hidden in it or an abstract representation for your icon. Board game graphic design is the time to be clear and concise, sometimes this means you don't get to do the "clever" idea and I think that's where a lot of board game graphic design fails.
Vast: The Mysterious Manor - Prototype
When it comes to being clear and concise, what are some of the most important things you’ve discovered?
Tough question, and I mean I'm still very new at this but if I was going to name some of my biggest lessons. If something seems awkward to communicate, it probably is. Explaining something should never feel uncomfortable, if it is, try to express it differently or recognize the rule/mechanic is weak. Physical mechanics, written rules, and thematic components always need to work towards the same purpose and can often inform each other. I.E You can answer a lot of questions about how something should work mechanically by asking why it works thematically and so on. If people keep interpreting something "wrong" they may just be right. Its not always worth fighting against human nature. If people keep interpreting something a particular way, see if you can leverage that expectation.
Vast: The Mysterious Manor - Photography by Ross Connell
The development of the Skeleton Player board:
This was one of the most satisfying to figure out! Early on, the board was swamped with text and explained every possible thing you could know about the skeletons. As we refined the role during development, we learned how we can split up the necessary information. also, escaping the common 8.5x11" board gave us the freedom needed to make the player board fit the role. (a theme that's repeated throughout the design)
How much does play-testing and feedback shape your work?
Next to direct feedback from Patrick and Cole, I'd say our play-testers are the people with the largest impact on graphic design changes. I'm actually writing this at a time where our rules editor, Josh Yearsley, is in town, and we're doing what I believe is one of the most important steps in this process. We bring in as many groups as possible who have little to no experience with what we're working on (currently Vast: The Mysterious Manor) and we watch them learn to play the game. Often, it's completely blind - we ask one player to read the rules, then they teach the others, and they all play. We watch, take notes, and try to allow them to learn and figure things out themselves, only helping when necessary. Josh distills all that feedback and we work together to re-organize information to deal with any problems we saw. These are often small changes with huge positive impact, both in language and presentation. Additions of simple things like small arrows, adjusting leading between text, and word choice like "all" vs "every" can remove minutes of rules checking and frustration. And that’s always been one of my biggest personal goals working in the game industry - making games easier to learn and less frustrating for the players.
Vast: The Mysterious Manor - Photography by Ross Connell
Is there a minimum amount of time you think should be spent on the feedback loop of play-testing and changes?
It is near impossible to give a time frame for testing - it is definitely more of a feeling, especially given how different every game's development is. That being said, I've made some observations about what to look for to know its ready (some of these would apply to many games, not just asymmetric ones!)
You should see questions being answered by the other people in the game and their own materials rather than referencing the rule book.
You should see people asking each other about their specific rules.
You should see people surprised/impressed/jealous of what others can do.
You shouldn't have any rules you don't like explaining.
You shouldn't see people attempting things just because other players can.
Vast: The Mysterious Manor - Photography by Ross Connell
The development of the Spider Player boards:
I am showing these as a sort of counter point to the skeleton player board. Where the Skeleton board required less space, we found the most intuitive change for the Spider was actually giving them 3 separate player boards. Usually you want fewer components, but by splitting the forms into 3 boards and controlling exactly what information is accessible to the player, we've found it's easier to teach and understand.
Is there any advice you can pass on to those who are trying to get into the industry or find work as a professional graphic designer?
Be persistent, cast a wide net, attend local events, and play to your strengths. The gaming industry is busy and hectic - don't assume that because you haven't been contacted back its a dead end. It can feel discouraging when emails and applications don't get a reply, but seriously: follow up, and follow up again. I'm not recommending you spam your prospective employer, but sometimes it takes multiple weeks and emails for companies/teams/individual people to respond. Be patient, but be persistent. For attending events I've still found Facebook to be the best tool. I'll regularly visit the Events area and search "games" "game design" or "tabletop". These can vary week-to-week but most of the time you can find something going on - local designers play testing games (Protospiel anyone?) or indie video game jams - whatever it is you find, these are other people who are trying to work in the game industry also. Sign up for their newsletters, bring business cards, and stay in contact.
Vast: The Mysterious Manor - Photography by Ross Connell
What are some non game related creations (books, music, movies, etc) that you’re currently enjoying?
While I'm working I usually just put full albums on. This year has been a lot of Denzel Curry, Anderson, Paak and Kanye West - anything high energy to keep that forward momentum. For reading lately I've been loving Andrew MacLean's Headlopper comic and catching up on Hellboy as they reprint them all. For television I can't recommend 'Nirvanna the Band the Show' enough, a genre-bending buddy comedy with some of the most unique production I've ever seen.
Finally, if we’d like to see more of you and your work on or offline, where can we find you?
Best place to find me is on Twitter @BickNachmann and I very recently made an Instagram! I’m also currently working on an art toy in my free time and trying to post the progress, hopefully of some Gundam kits and possibly embroidered hats in the future!
All images supplied by and copyright of Nick Brachmann and Leder Games.
Did you enjoy this interview? Do you want to hear more about graphic design in board games? Let me know in the comments below!
Finally, whilst you’re here, why not check out some of the other wonderful interviews on the site via the archive or the Top 10 Best Board Game Art of 2018 as voted for by my readers!