Brief Interruption
Nov19
on November 19, 2020
at 7:02 am
Hey. I’ve gotten busy on client work and I missed an update- hopefully I’ll do some catchup later today. Cross your fingers.
‘Til then, I’ll ask a favor.
Critique! Critique like the Wind!
Take a look at these designs for the game card backs and use your best professorial voice to say which ones are terrible, and why, and which one (or combination of which ones) you think I should use when this thing goes to the printer.
Thanks!
Ok… Let’s use Columns A and B, numbers 1-5 (though there is no B5).
A1 and A2 seem really ‘busy’ to me and a little distracting. B1 is a little busy as well, but not as much as A1-2.
A3, I like for it’s simplicity.
A4 hurts my eyes a little bit, I think because there’s text going in three different directions.
A5 I really like. It’s clean and bright.
B2 I also like for the same reasons.
B3 seems a little too plain to me, and I’ve personally never cared for the interlocking circle thing outside of a certain 4 year mega-competitive event.
B4 is good design with a decent amount of ‘pop’. It’s not overly busy.
My favorites are, in order, B2, B4, A5. And I feel that you should keep the pairs together. i.e. do not mix and match B2-team with B4-event.
I like the blue and red cards at the lower right. I think, if I can decipher Obi’s convention, above, that would be B4. At least that is what I thought B4 I tried to figure it out.
I like the middle left and bottom right.
Of course … opinions are like assholes – everyone has one, and it’s full of shit. hehehehe
(love everyone!)
A3 is my favorite as is. A3 is clean and readable.
A5 grew on me after reading the previous comment. I like the contrasting color themes between the two cards. I think the flourishes probably aren’t needed and why I wasn’t drawn to it originally. Definitely the diagonal stripes and maybe the vertical ones.
B3 grew on me also and actually without the interlocking becomes a pretty clean design. The angles give it life. The cross colors are nice. The zoom line for the subtitle just enough flourish.
Many of the other ones have weird fonts/transparencies or too much going on that overlaps with the text and makes it harder to read.
Finally just a nerd comment I’d love a version that isn’t a one way deck.
Right side, second down. It’s clean, attractive, and doesn’t make my eyes dance like a drunken albatross while I try to figure out what it actually says.
Using Obi’s Column A (Left) and B (Right) and numbers (1 at top), but take my input with skepticism because I have NO artistic sense, cannot always differentiate colors, and always choose solids over prints (i.e., I tend to like what everybody else thinks is boring).
A1 – Busy and scattered. My eye does not know where to go.
A2 – The curly font for ConCards bothers me. (I should probably see a shrink about that.)
A3 – Until I looked at B1, I did not even realize what the silhouettes were of. So, I like the idea of this one, but it did not sell its message to me without an explanation. (Luck, heart, brains, strength, balance, jest, broad smile, not sure what the compass?, sparkler?, book? and other kite-shaped blobs are representing). I do like the sense of speed and movement evoked by “EVENT” and “TEAM.”
A4 – Visually I love this, but it feels very retro and I am not sure how appropriate that is for the game. I do love how the “team card” or “event card” pops out of the card in each of these.
A5 – Clean and bright, but it makes me think of a hot dog stand at an organized sports event. Organized?!?! Not a word I associate with Hubris. Where’s the FUN?
B1 – I WANT to like this one. I love what the figures represent (luck, heart, thought, strength, balance, humor). It is a bit goofy (which is on brand). I like the sense of speed as EVENT and TEAM race off. But something is not working for me visually. Maybe the less saturated colors of the background (but that could be my problem of not seeing colors unless they really pop)? Maybe the Con Cards font or coloring. (Are they sparkles or polka dots?) Not sure what my problem is.
B2 – Very Cartoony! That’s a compliment in this context.
B3 – My personal hands-down favorite! Whee! Speeding downhill towards who-knows-what. Con linked in by Cards going along for the ride whether she wants to or not. (Full disclosure – every brand I have ever liked goes out of business. Clearly I am not a good representative of a large demographic.)
B4 – Cartoony. Sparkly. Sense of speed (more like a plane in the sky than a little red wagon about to crash, but that’s OK).
Can we mix and match?
Then I vote for B3 or B4 red for an EVENT card and A3 or B1 blue for a TEAM card (because of all those figures representing everything a true blue team needs).
To me, A1, A2, and B1 are all just way too busy.
A3 strikes me as the overall best. Not plain, not too busy, not too sparkly. The best of every option while sacrificing nothing.
For what it’s worth (I’m in no way a graphic professional, making it hard to put on a professional voice), I’ll add another vote for A3, for the reasons given by Erich above.
A/B 5 looks a little flat. Could use some depth on the borders of the Con Cards placard. C/D 6 looks intentionally busy, but perhaps some slanting on the icons to make them appear more random? C/D 7 looks AWESOME! Love the see-through effect.
And please don’t apologize for putting payed work first. We understand and will be here when you are finished!
Here are my two cents:
A1 I like it. At first glance it seems too much, too busy as previously said, but on second glance I like the explosion of icons.
A2 It does not feel wholesome, it seems a bit too busy and too unbalanced.
A3 Simple, clear… I like it. But the “S on the red diamond” outline is not easy to associate with the icon. The “runner on the lightning bolt” would be better in my opinion.
A4 Good colors, but I’d say it’s too simple.
A5 Nice and crisp… but it feels a bit too mainstream, the lettering for Event/Team makes me think of the kind found on shirts for university football teams…
B1 Good ones, very comicky.
B2 Good ones.
B3 Not a huge fan of the fonts and maybe too simple.
B4 Good ones.
My prefered one would be in order:
A3, especialy if changing the “S on red” with the “Runner on bolt” outline
A1
B1
B2/B4 tied
Simple without all the weirdness.
Third down on left, my favorite, fourth down on left, second favorite.
Top tight cards with the crowns and clovers. Nice graphic feel
A1- No. Too busy, the images are tiny and chaotic, the multi-direction text is unappealing and confuses which way is up, and the transparent text is too small.
A2- No. More stylized and fun, but the fancy font is difficult to read at a glance especially with the two different color words (three if you count the transparent.) The images are again too small, but they actually look like confetti in this one so it’s more okay that they’re crammed in there.
A3- Yes. Simple, clean,easy to read, image silhouettes form a nice backdrop.
A4- No. The worst of the lot.
A5- Maybe? Easy to read and differentiate, plus they actually look like badges. The colors could use some workshopping, they’re a little incoherent, but I like the fun stripe effect.
B1- Maybe? Silly fun, good for a kid’s event or child badges. I appreciate the difficulty of fitting all those images in, but you need to move that thinky thought bubble. Maybe swap it with the heart and center the heart over the d? And the blue needs to be richer to balance the red.
B2- No. Top half is okay-ish but it’s dominated by the transparent text, which has a terrible font. That’s a good red/blue balance.
B3- No. A good example of how to do legible zany, but a bit too plain. After the initial read my brain tries to interpret it as shapes.
B4- Yes. The best of the lot. Fun, exciting, legible, ~*~sparkly~*~, and colorful. Makes me wonder what event those are for, and how I get one.
Additional thought on B4: If you made the images white and shrunk them to confetti-size, you could hide some of them in with the sparklies.
I completely skipped over B2 the first several times I looked. It just didn’t catch my eye, HOWEVER, I think I like it the best. It has some whimsy with the see-through, and Event and Team are large. (I assume they are significant in the game.) I like B4 next, it looks cartoonish which I suppose goes with the game. (I’m really looking forward to playing this at our biweekly game night.) B3 is my solid 3rd choice; clean crisp and informative. All the others look too busy to me.