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Card Design 3

Card Design 3

Comments

Gridding out the card.

I think it's a good direction with the look and feel of the card. It definitely has the air of the Victorian era in the texture and iconography. I think where you're running into issues are in your margins and object spacing. I'll try to break down a few areas where the design is sticking for me.

• Things seem to be kind of floating around the card, there are no solid baselines where objects align and flow together. For example, the horizontal area running under the 6(Power Bar?), the character portrait and the text area(?). If you took that six-bar, turned it horizontal and ran it under or over the character portrait area/text area it would provide a nice structure for the upper portion of the card and separate it visually from the stat area.

• While I do like the feel of the feather by the name I have to agree with Matthew on this one. It feels like it should be symbolic of some kind of game mechanic. If I encountered that on a card while playing the game for the first time it would send me reaching for a manual to see what a feather quill next to a name meant.

• The bottom of the card where the stat "grid" resides is a little awkward in its layout. With the full-size gear icons along the top it competes in visual dominance with the shield/boot/$ icons above it. At first glance it take the viewer a moment to look at figure out exactly what icons are part of what information. You've also got the empty void just above the "power" box. Perhaps if you changed it into more of a table setup and reversed the order so the Power/difficulty/range sat along the top you'd have less empty space there.

I sketched up a rough mock-up of the kind of layout I'm talking about (I was having issues quantifying exactly what wasn't working for me and working through it myself helps with the critique process). You can take a look at it here.

Mind you take all of this with a grain of salt. I'm a graphic designer in my day job and I tend to gravitate towards cleanly gridded layout as an instant reaction :p

I'm gonna have to closer look at your previous entries for this game. It looks like something that would be right up my alley!

Awesome!

First off, thanks for for your in-depth analysis AND mock card!

"Mind you take all of this with a grain of salt. I'm a graphic designer in my day job and I tend to gravitate towards cleanly gridded layout as an instant reaction :p"
I can see. The layout is something I'd see in a Pen and Paper RPG book for character creation. Maybe it's just the format in which you re-created my card (the solid b/w), but it looks a little too sterile. All the aesthetics have been removed. I'll go into detail.

• Yes, I know my spacing and such is off. I really just banged these out with NO spacing or grouping whatsoever. Until it has a final layout, I'm just quick cutting. The closer I get, the more time I'll take. lol
• The bar was supposed to be a thermometer which is why I had it upright. If it is turned on its side, I can just remove the thermometer aspect all together and just make a rectangular box which says "Health" or "Hit Points". Horizontally, it reminds me of Warmachine's solo unit boxes and I want to stay as far away from similarities as possible. BUT, if it's what people find more visually appealing, I change it.
• I originally wanted the words above the grid and icons on the side. The words took up a lot of space horizontally and putting them at an angle or vertical is right out. I don't like the way I have it now, but it was suggested to me and it saved space. If I put it back to the way I originally wanted, I have to decide whether to keep the words in the grid (sterile) or give it that Victorian flare.
• The icons to the left of the grid no longer have the gear outline. Why is that? I'm kind of an all or nothing person. If 1 stat is a certain way, all of them have to be. Just wondering why Shield, Boot, and Money still have the gear and the other don't.
• Above the "Power" box, I JUST had the thought to add my ranking system. "Grunt", "Lieutenant", "Captain" which it going to be signified by medals. 1, 2, or 3 metals (respectively) next to each other (like Contra for the NES). With the changed layout, I'm going to have to move them somewhere else.

Thanks once again for your input and look forward to your response!

Looks good! However it still

Looks good! However it still feels like there's more "white" space on the right side than the left side.

P.S. Is the feather representative of a faction or something? Or just decoration?

"White" space? Like blank

"White" space? Like blank space? I do see a long gap to the right now that you mention it. I'd Probably just shorten the card to European size just to tighten it up.

The Feather is just for looks. Thanks for the input!

"white" space just means the

"white" space just means the space between elements of the design. Shortening the card would work, but I think it would look even better if all the elements lined up on the right side. So the title bar, attributes box and the right side of the stat boxes would all hit the same imaginary line on their right sides.

Too bad about the feather, I always like subtle things like that having some relevance. :)

I usually gravitate my

I usually gravitate my designs toward the center or left (as when using a typewriter). I tried to line up everything on the left (as per your suggestion in the second card). I'm currently trying too line up the right as well now. Now that I think about it, my game has lieutenants, leaders, and grunts... wait no, no. I'm going to use the empty space above the lightbulbs for that. Drat.

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image | by Dr. Radut