Working in a creative field can be exhilarating one minute and extremely frustrating the next. You rally back and forth between being truly inspired to completely blocked from creative thought. Adding a global pandemic into the mix has taken this delicate creative ecosystem and flipped it upside-down. Hear perspectives from several talented creative professionals in the tabletop industry of what staying creative in the times of COVID has looked like for them.

We take a look back at a year that none of us saw coming. The losses, the wins and everything in-between.

Passion is what keeps us going at 3 AM on a project that is ‘done’, just not ‘finished’. It's what drives us to spend 3 hours creating the perfect Instagram post from our trip to grocery store instead of working on the paying gig that’s due tomorrow. Sometimes it's our BFF, other times? Less so. The pertinent question here is how are your designers putting their passion to work for them?

In Part IV of this series, we take a look at “The Evil Genius” persona of graphic designers. Possessing the knowledge is only half the battle…the other half is how they put that knowledge to work!

In Part III of this series, we take a look at “The Action Hero” persona of graphic designers. How your designers act and comport themselves says a lot about them and the services they offer.

The key to every successful client relationship that I’ve had has been communication. When there is a continuous 2-way flow of communication between client and designer, there are no big surprises, deadlines aren’t a problem, and things just seem to go more smoothly.

The relationship between a game publisher and graphic designer is a very intimate one. Often, graphic designers are involved in the project longer than most anyone else, as they can provide meaningful contributions throughout the entire game development process. As a publisher, you may not know what exactly to look for in your graphic designers. This series is meant to help familiarize you with the qualities you should look for and expect to find any graphic desingers whom you choose to work with.

Ever ask yourself what needs to happen in order to get fabricate your favourite games? In this series, we’re going to pull back the curtain and demystify a bunch of manufacturing hoops our games go through to get to the table; starting with Die-Cutting!

A look back at 2019—our successes, lessons we’ve learned and where we find ourselves now as well as a look into what’s coming for 2020.

Are you a budding professional in the industry? Are you wondering if the effort and costs of attending these events are worth it? In this blog I share my thoughts on it and offer some pros and cons you may want to consider before attending your next con.

Families, like tabletop games, come in all shapes and sizes. The larger they get, the more diverse their members tend to be, yet despite this diversity, each one of them bears traits that tie them together like green eyes or blonde hair which make them recognizable as kin.

As I write this post, the clocks are rolling over to the New Year and I find myself, as many do, looking back on the past 12 months. 2018 represented a ton of new things for me, I was entering the new year as a full-time entrepreneur as I have done on occasion before, but this time was different.

It was Summer, 2001. I was serving tables at a few restaurants while picking up as much freelance work as I could, while trying to make ends meet. Back then for me, freelance gigs were pretty scarce. My network was undeveloped, and I had virtually no rep. I had just left a company and was looking for my next full-time job.

The term “Work Smarter, Not Harder” may be cliché, but it rings true. Establishing a solid, easy to follow workflow will maximize your productivity and creativity.

There are some very useful techniques that can really help us attain these goals. Here are a few things that I do when creating an accessible rulebook that flows well.

Good design, better yet, GREAT design should invisible, often not even memorable because it does what it's meant to do; enhance gameplay. When we experience bad design on the other hand, its quickly etched into our permanent memory. It's clumsy nature gets in the way and can often inhibit the natural flow of the game.

Live and die by the brand. Is your brand being represented in a consistent and professional manner across all channels? Here are a few thoughts that may help you ensure that what you put out there is speaking a unified visual message.

When it comes to tabletop games, good art direction can elevate the title to great things, and conversely poor art direction may, in fact, be a prominent nail in it's coffin. The role of creative or art director on a project often falls on the shoulders of a classically trained artist with 20 years of experience, but just as often, it's a hat worn by the project manager or some other team member who may not have that artistic background and experience. I find the latter describes how many smaller publishers operate; several people wearing several hats.

First in an ongoing series of posts about design in general and in the tabletop game industry.