Essays

Banner Tweaking

Here’s a quick comparison between drafts of my GenCon 2014 banners. On the left, the banner I thought was the final one. On the right, the one that we used after I let the design “bake” in my brain a bit.

GenCon 2014 Banner, designed by Howard, using cover art from Privateer Press, Carter Reid, Julie Dillon, and his own hand.
GenCon 2014 Banner designed by Howard. Art by Howard, Julie Dillon, Carter Reid, and artists at Privateer Press
HowardBanner-5x7-2014-WEB
GenCon 2014 Banner designed by Howard. Art by Howard, Julie Dillon, Carter Reid, and artists at Privateer Press

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Can you see  the difference? The big change was swapping XDM and SHADOWS BENEATH. For branding purposes, the original layout made it look like SHADOWS BENEATH was a Schlock cover. With XDM running interference, though, SHADOWS BENEATH gets to be its own thing.

I also changed the text effect on my name. The wavy effect was cool, but on a fabric banner it will make people thing the banner is hanging badly. The slight arch with the forward lean (the one on the left) will look much better, especially since people will be looking up at that spot.

This project killed an entire day, and that final tweak was made during three hours I could have spent writing. But I needed to make the tweak, and I didn’t know what exactly it was until I started nudging things around.