Hollandazed: Thoughts, Ideas, and Miscellany — Cartography

It's unusual to ask the graphic designer to write about their graphic work. (We can write as a rule, although I’m not sure it’s personally my forte). Mary and Tom's request for me to say a bit about my board for their upcoming game The Vote: Suffrage and Suppression in America was unexpected, but I’m going to see if I can say something useful and maybe even coherent with an outside chance of being informative. In designing a board, the first thing to do is gather the specs, the art direction, and the rules/playtesting components. You’d be surprised how often...

I owe a lot to board game maps. When I was a kid, I had many more wargaming maps than I had games thanks to the vagaries of yard sales. I also had a drawer in my desk stuffed full of old roadmaps. There was nothing systematic about either collection. I just liked looking at maps. I guess I couldn’t help but become interested in a hobby that was so preoccupied with geography. When I was first exploring roleplaying games I produced maps by the dozens. Gradually my gaming maps moved digital, and I often used these projects to learn...