The Garden of Haven
This is a personal project. In the last few years, I have become interested in tabletop role playing games. Under the pseudonym Gum Jacobs, I wrote, designed, and did some of the art digitally for a supplemental adventure called the Garden of Haven for a newer game called DaggerHeart. Note: The mockups below incorporate some stock art and some commissioned art from a friend alongside some of my own art. This isn’t an art portfolio, and I don’t want to imply that all of the illustrations are my work. All typography, logo design, and page layout are my own work.
The Challenges
The tabletop role playing game space is crowded with decades of supplemental materials, standing out in that space is difficult but very important.
I wanted to make a logo that could also be used as the cover art. I needed it to communicate the interesting aspects of the supplement and look fun to play.
It is common in these spaces for people to recreate the look of the core game that you are making content for. Web templates exist on some sites that are similar to DaggerHeart’s style, but as far as I am aware an Adobe Indesign template was not available, so I wanted to make one.
The Solution
Recreating DaggerHeart’s style was pretty simple for the most part. Their body copy typeface was available on Adobe Fonts, and I chose a similar Heading typeface. I set up a style sheet with various levels of Headings and type treatments. I recreated a version of the footer bar and altered a stock illustration of ivy to fit the chapter frame element that DaggerHeart uses. This adventure was for one of the Campaign Frames called the Witherwild so my version of these elements tie in with the themes of overgrowth and the wild forces of nature.
On the logo side, I have been really liking tape style logos recently. The clients that I usually work with would never request tape style logos, but that’s where I started on this project. DaggerHeart is often used for Medieval Fantasy, so I ended up tweaking my tape style letter forms to have a more Medieval feel to them. I added illustrative elements to communicate the threats and interests in this adventure.
This is not a copywriter’s portfolio, but my goal on the writing side was to use a template for writing adventures from a creator named Joseph R. Lewis. The white page with ‘Areas 1-8’ pictured above shows how he lays out his pages and organizes information. I translated his informational style to DaggerHeart’s visual style.
The Outcome