|
Paizo i am making a request for a different style of book cover art. The old 3.x books had a spell book, ancient book type of look to them. They had hinges and other details printed on them.
The current cover have great art work, but I do not find it very inspiring. The old books have a secretive feel to them. The current books feel like rule books to me, nothing more. The cover could say just pathfinder in new roman font text and inspire the same feeling in me.
I know Paizo won't change there philosophy on book design because of me, I just like the style of the old D&D books.
I like the aesthetics of the 3.5 books as well. That said, that look is very product/brand identity for WotC's 3.0 and 3.5 books. And frankly some were less successful than others. The psionics book in particular looked less like an arcane tome and more like an art project made with pink sculpie clay and a Play-Doh set.
The Paizo books? An attractive and distinctive typeface for the spines, wonderful and evocative illustrations for the covers. Leagues beyond 1st edition and its fun but frankly poorly drawn temple raiders and manticores.
Besides, if you don't like the covers, you can always get slip-covers. There used to be the old Dragonskin covers, or the old high school solution of making your own cover out of a paper bag.
Chief Creative Officer, Publisher
|
Very interesting. I suspect most people feel just the opposite.
After a while, all of the "fake book" covers that WotC did started to look pretty "same-y," so at a glance it was difficult to tell one from the other. That's not good for business.
Plus, the earlier 3.0 books were not actually paintings, but photographs of 3D sculptures by a rather brilliant artist. Lots of folks are capable of painting evocative fantasy scenes, so if we should ever be so unlucky as to not be able to get Wayne Reynolds to do a hardcover, we have a rolodex of people who could fill in ably.
On the other hand, there aren't a lot of "fake libram sculpture guys," so when that guy is sick or can't deliver, you end up with something like the Spell Compendium, a computer-generated simulacrum that looks more like a d20 product that an offering from a major publisher.
Which is something I'd rather not do.
|
|
Very interesting. I suspect most people feel just the opposite.
Here's one at least. I get the appeal the "false book" approach has, and it would be neat to see done well on specialty books, but I really do prefer the approach taken with Pathfinder's covers. Covers like Seeker of Secrets really get me.
Thinking back, I really prefered the cover art from a lot of 2E material(Planescape and BROM especially) over most of the 3E covers. And I say that as a Todd Lockwood fan.
I'm very happy with the current Paizo covers. The "fake book" covers were nice, but I think each edition should have its own unique feel, including cover. Besides, the Pathfinder books have much more readable spines than the 3.0/3.5 books did, which helps immensely for finding the right book from the shelf quickly :)
And I agree with Erik; Higginbotham is a pretty unique artist, and by far the best I've seen at his style.
I just hope sometime in the future, when all erratas have been found and made, you will release the core (and perhaps bestiary and more) books as special editions with a very subtle cover. Perhaps the Paizo golem on black leather background.
The current cover is more dynamic and therefor more eye-catching, but I do prefer the 3.5 design. However it's no big deal and I really do like the art in the core book.
Perhaps a wiley paraphenalia provider might create something like the old Dragonskin covers of yore.
I loved the idea behind the 3.5 books, but is old.
WR is very good because is very evocative. Is able to communicate very clearly "the game" and his situations.
Go WR!
The Tome of Horrors Complete will have the hinge approach to it so it feels like it "belongs" with the original 3 Tomes.
Here's an interesting tidbit, though. The use of the splash picture that fills the entire frame of the cover is an even older design choice. Check out some of the 1st edition D&D book covers to see what I mean.
Necromancer Games used a similar principle when designing their module fronts in that they emulated the earlier modules in coding (D1, G1, G2, etc.) how that code appeared on the cover (Circled in the top-left corner), use of the diagonal banner and framed cover art.
Frog God Games does much the same (being, with Legendary Games, one of the two successors of NG). And I hope that folks like my modernized interpretations of those old styles.
All of this use of "throwback looks", for me, is to let people know where you're coming from. I like that Paizo tells me that they're coming from the "old school" of thought on gaming. It's an indicator to me that they are gamers making games, following in the footsteps of a great line of folks with Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson walking out front.
The 3rd Edition cover style speaks to me of resurrection and revolution of Dungeons and Dragons spearheaded by Ryan Dancey and Monte Cooke . . . and unfortunately, the demise of those same ideals by corporate America.
So I think it's best that we go back to our roots for the covers.
P.S. Wayne Renolds does, indeed, rock.
The Tome of Horrors Complete will have the hinge approach to it so it feels like it "belongs" with the original 3 Tomes.
...
P.S. Wayne Renolds does, indeed, rock.
(a) It can't arrive soon enough.
(b) Not only that, but he's an awesome guy to hang out with and buy a beer.
The first 2 AP Player's Guides use the book cover style. I for one would have liked that themed book trend to have continued for the ones that followed. Those 2 covers gave a nice style to what a Player's Guide would be expected to look like from a player perspective. I can't say the same for any of the covers since, some of which look like intern test cover projects of varied quality.
P.S. Kingmaker Player's Guide cover map image: Is it just me or did the shadow forget that it usually looks better when light is coming from above (being the top of the book in this case, like a candle on the table as opposed to the viewer holding a torch)? This image is similar in all instances of use in other Kingmaker products.
