This is truly amazing advice given for free as opposed to being learnt over a period of time and mixed results. You are generous in making this available and these are gems.
Really helpful and informative read thank you ! Only yesterday I fell into the trap of searching for 1950s fonts and - as you so rightly predicted - found pages of junk. Taking your suggestion of looking at real fonts I stumbled over the realisation that there are apps out there (Find my Font is one) that allow you to scan an image and provide suggestions on what font it might be - so using that with my Quatermass script Penguin book cover really helped me move forward quite a bit. Thank you !!!
Great article! There is another book which I’d highly recommend for the principles of layout “The non-designers design book” by Robin Williams. Chock-full of really helpful advice.
One thing that I’ve noticed is that awards judges love to see books with ‘artistic’ layouts which are hugely busy, with lots of shapes and colours and layouts. IMO a simpler design is much more usable at the table and when reading to get to grips with a game though. So I love to see the main body of a text simple and readable. That might be just me though.
Yes, I totally agree with this! I think layout is a bit like theatrical lighting: it's best when you don't notice it. But it's often the busy layouts that get the attention.
This is truly amazing advice given for free as opposed to being learnt over a period of time and mixed results. You are generous in making this available and these are gems.
Gems for free...
That's really nice of you. It is basically Brennen's advice filtered through my own experience.
Really helpful and informative read thank you ! Only yesterday I fell into the trap of searching for 1950s fonts and - as you so rightly predicted - found pages of junk. Taking your suggestion of looking at real fonts I stumbled over the realisation that there are apps out there (Find my Font is one) that allow you to scan an image and provide suggestions on what font it might be - so using that with my Quatermass script Penguin book cover really helped me move forward quite a bit. Thank you !!!
You're welcome! Tools like that are really useful.
Great article! There is another book which I’d highly recommend for the principles of layout “The non-designers design book” by Robin Williams. Chock-full of really helpful advice.
One thing that I’ve noticed is that awards judges love to see books with ‘artistic’ layouts which are hugely busy, with lots of shapes and colours and layouts. IMO a simpler design is much more usable at the table and when reading to get to grips with a game though. So I love to see the main body of a text simple and readable. That might be just me though.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Non-Designers-Design-Book-Non-Designers-ebook/dp/B00PWDFWEE
Yes, I totally agree with this! I think layout is a bit like theatrical lighting: it's best when you don't notice it. But it's often the busy layouts that get the attention.