Capstone Project - Box Art
Manufacturing considerations -
As a stretch goal one of the things I wanted to consider making for my project is a box to hold my game. Hayman creative offers a good box printing service and I like how they have templates readily available for all of their models of boxes. Looking at the maximum size of my cards, I selected size 4 as my option as I feared anything smaller and the cards at best would be a very snug fit, and at worst wouldn't fit at all. For this size, I originally thought about doing just the plain board on the inside however I think the black board inside would look much better [as this is a prototype that I could potentially be using to help crowdfund my game in the future I want it to look as polished as possible]. This does tack on a bit to the price admittedly, but I think it's worth it for a nice looking product. As for the actual artwork, I chose the matt laminated with graphics on the lid and base, This is the cheapest option that covers the whole box, and only requires me to make artwork for the top and bottom of the box, not the interior. Right now I don't know how my products would fit in the box so I don't plan on getting any inserts, on top of this I want to keep manufacture of my game as eco friendly as possible so the least amount of excess packaging I can include the better.
I think this calculated to around £55, not including the cards.
This is quite a bit of money just for a box, so I did have a look at some other options such as Quinprinting and WooHoop however as Hayman creative is based in Nottingham this is not only better carbon footprint wise, but also means I might be able to pick up the pieces rather than have them delivered which would probably make it a bit cheaper. This isn't necessarily sustainable long term if I plan on larger manufacture runs but for one or two this is fine.
Other options -
https://qinprinting.co.uk/custom-game-boxes/
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| Choosing collection rather than delivery knocked £15 off the final cost and as I am local to Notts anyways its no problem to pop by and pick it up. |
Calculating how much everything from Hayman would be, I'm looking at £114.14 [Roughly?] for one unit, I think its only about £20 more to get two units produced however this does not include the counters or the player boards which is likely to tack another £20 onto the final cost. With this in mind I think I will only get one final game produced right now, especially while I am still considering what the best option for my tokens will be [I will cover this in a later post].
Thumbnailing-
One of the main reasons I like working with Hayman Creative over any other printing company is they provide clear templates on their website for all of their products. I was able to select the box that I wanted and find the template for it, which I then used to create some artwork for.
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| Some inspiration, I especially like the layout for Takenoko, with the box putting focus on the setting of the game. |
I made a set of 6 thumbnails of different box art, this will be on the Lid so I wanted to include the name of the game, my company, and the information about the game [age rating, time and player limit]. Of these designs I think number 1 , 4 and 5 have very monochromatic colour pallets that make the title of the game blend in, making it harder to read. On top of this, design 2 does not offer very much insight on what the game is about. I think design 4 is nice, it fits the caveman theme well, but it does not represent the overall art style of my game well as most of the art fits the cartoony style whereas the cave painting look is used only once.
Design 1 is on the right lines of what I would like for the front cover, but its very busy, and the title intersects the cave in the background making it hard to see what is going on. I could always move the text, however I do like the title being central [it just looks neater to me]. At the moment, i am torn between designs 3 and 6, I love how the title stands out from design 3 and how it highlights the prehistoric backdrop of the game. Much like design 4, it doesn't show how my game links to hotels. I think I could fix this issue very easily though by simply adding in one of my cave designs as a silhouette into the background.
Design 6 has the hotel front and centre, the colour pallet allows the title to stand out, and looking at all my designs from a distance, this was the one that caught my eye the best. Standing out to people from a distance is the most important part of box art, it acts as your products advertising and if your box art doesn't inspire people to pick up your game, you won't get them to play it. I have to say though something isn't completely perfect about it, I might try putting the title on a slight slant to add a bit more energy to the box rather than having everything on straight lines.
With this in mind, I want to do some iterations of these two final choices to really lock in what I want for the front cover. Once I have picked one, I can work on making art for the sides and underside of the box.
Feedback -
I asked my peers for some feedback and they agreed number 3 is the best of the designs for much of the same reasons as I outlined above.
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| Here's the version of design 3 with one of the caves in the background, I think I prefer the look of design 6 best, however. |
Final Box art -
Heres how design 6 looks with a slightly rotated title, this is a subtle change that just adds a bit more energy to the cover. I also moved the logos and icons onto the side of the box, as I noticed most board game boxes do this to keep the front as clutter free as possible.
Now that I have chosen by final design, I made the sides of the box using Hayman creative's template.
I really love how the box looks, i think it stands out quite well and fits in great with the overall theme of my game!
Trello -
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/112wXJW27lFJjkPjQHZk7fCMT7VPCanDHE-cVP0tGDUM/edit?usp=sharing
All of my stretch goals are now complete, with this in mind I will need to get my game produced fairly soon to ensure everything is ready for the graduate showcase at the end of the year. I aim to research how much my game is going to cost through Hayman creative and also consider how I am going to create the tokens for my game.
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