So I've been working on Worlds Apart (our Mongoose Traveller-based fantasy game) for a while now and have been tinkering with the layout. I'm trying to be a bit more graphic-designy on this one. Here's a mock-up of the table of contents spread. I'm pretty pleased with it, but I know I've much more tinkering to do.
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7 hours ago
2 comments:
I like what you are trying to do with the layout, but the typography needs to breathe a little more--more space between each line would help to make it more readable (as opposed to legible). Also, as you are going with initial caps in the table of contents, please limit them only to decorative headlines, and make sure your subheads and body copy are standard upper/lowercase. Words in all caps, even initial caps, are hard to read as the capital letter forms and strokes are all straight lines. Lower case letters are easier to read due to more variance in the letter forms. I am of the opinion that the trend to put background artwork in every RPG is overkill--more time is often spent creating irrelevant "cool" textures behind the words, when the effort should go towards the typography. This is one of the reasons I find my fave Savage Worlds Explorers Edition too hard to skim--too many cool type effects, and not enough time spent making sure it is all readable.
*chuckle* Those were actually some of my concerns. I think I need to tone down the background hexes (probably by about half) and make the small descriptive sentences standard upper/lowercase. I'm not entirely pleased with the spacing and parsing in the text on the islands on the left side, but I think I can tweek at that a bit more and make it more attractive.
Thanks for the feedback!
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