The job of a graphic designer is not to make things look pretty; it is to communicate information. Today, we were talking about character sheets in roleplaying games on Twitter, specifically the Vampire: the Masquerade sheet. Daniel writes that his biggest issue with that sheet “is the lack of emphasis on the core theme of Humanity vs Beastâ€. A look at the sheet he was talking about not only illustrates his issue, but also illustrates a fatal flaw in the character sheet: there is no hierarchy of information. Nothing on the sheet tells you what is important for the game: everything on the sheet has the same weight or visual density and becomes a wall of nothing. (The wall of nothing would be especially troublesome when that sheet has information added to it by the player.)
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Thoughts on the first year of denaghdesign.com
Oh, I have excuses. One of my freelancing jobs turned into a regular, staff position, which ate away at my freelancing time. My little girl went from toddler to kid. (I still don’t want to admit that.) The non-profit organization I head eats up a lot of my free time; the other non-profit took up time. We keep having people come and visit. Gaming nights. Friends. Family.
Oh, I have excuses.
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Nightfall!
Crazy good news to start the year off right–I arrived home this afternoon to find out that one of the games I worked on this summer has been officially announced. AEG’s Nightfall, a deck-construction game about vampires and other undead nasties, is coming out in early 2011! (And, if you head over to the Nightfall website, you can win one of 100 copies of the game!)
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