So, recently I had the pleasure of doing some design work for Goodman Games on a couple of different Dungeons & Dragons 5E game modules: Glitterdoom, The Fey Sisters Fate, War-Lock, and The Pillars of Pelagia.
I had to come up with a cover dress and interior page layout. For the cover dress a title, sub-title, and 5E icon were needed. When working, I always start with font selection to try and nail down the right feel for everything. In this case I was going for a classic “fantasy” feel. I used a mix of font families: Mason, Adobe Garamond, and ITC Franklin Gothic, so I could have all of bases covered when it came time to do the interior page layout. I recommend using a font family that has multiple font options: regular, book, italic, semi-bold, bold, heavy etc. This helps in keeping a consistent professional look throughout the work.
After fonts were finalized, I chose colors and fooled around with some different layer effects in Photoshop to come up with the final layout for the cover. Once the first layout was approved, I set up a layer template in Adobe Illustrator with all of the elements in place making it easy to do a simple edit and replace with each of the cover art pieces and then editing the copy on the title text, module number, level, and author name. I exported each cover from their individual layers and sent them out for edits/approval.
The interior page layout was a little different in that I didn’t have any actual content, but had to cover all of the various instances where a different font style would be used. I used a two column format, looked at examples of existing modules, and created a header and footer for the page. Look at the fonts used on the page layout image to see all of the options I provided.
All in all it was pretty straight forward cover and page layout. If you have any questions about my process or design in general, feel free to send me a message. I would be more than happy to lend a hand.
Until next time...keep on, keepin’ on.
-Ed
Choosing a selection results in a full page refresh.
All in all it was pretty straight forward cover and page layout. If you have any questions about my process or design in general, feel free to send me a message. I would be more than happy to lend a hand.
Until next time...keep on, keepin’ on.
-Ed