Getting the Game Ready for Production - Part 2

Figuring out the design was a little bit of a challenge. I had ideas based on elements that I thought looked cool but the publisher also has to consider what their target market would think is cool and what compliments the LDS culture, especially in the west. Another factor was that there had not been an LDS card game like this before and so we weren't sure how far to take the design. The cards ended up being designed by a young designer at Covenant and leaned toward a more conservative design.

Designing the cover was even tougher. The packaging of the game had many considerations as well. It needed to sell itself off the shelf and be eyecatching. It needed to read clearly and be a size that it could easily be displayed close to the register but not get lost on the display shelves. Displayed below are some of the designs I put together for the cover. I worked back and forth with the designer at Covenant but we couldn't seem to finalize the design. The composition worked easy with just the title and a small iconic graphic but everyone involved wanted to have warriors on the front. We just couldn't seem to make it work.After working on this composition on and off for weeks, I was on the computer and my wife walked by. I was slaving away and she just glanced at it and said, "Just put those two images behind, make them bigger and drop the text down." And then she strolled away.

I did it and it was perfect! I sent it to Covenant and everyone loved it. I told them, of course, that when you hire professionals, who have been highly trained in the art of... you know, the inspiration when you... when you have the gift to see... All right - my wife told me what to do!