Besides the new images I've been drawing for all cvilization Advances,
http://www.civproject.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=433
I'm also working on new lay-out for the cards, as I've always thought the original Avalon Hill layout was too basic, and could always be improved.

Actually, I was used to the great works in "Magic The Gathering" and I got a bit dissapointed when I first opened my box of Civilization when I bought it.


I allready made some first sketshes and posted them in the other topic for the artwork. I'll first copy paste them here.
I want to work as transparant as possible. For all to view how I make descissions.

ORIGINALLY POSTED 12 october 2007:

ORIGINALLY POSTED 14 october 2007:

This is what I have at the moment. I'm still working on it.
I've been discussing this with a few people of my group during christmas.


What I've changed is:

1. Unused credit symbols will be removed. That means that if a card credits only green and orange for example, only those 2 symbols will be on the cards, instead of still showing 3 empty symbol, what my first idea was.
I made room for 3 symbols, as For Example "Literacy" credits 3 different groups"
I'm not happy with the 5colour-symbol. (my group rather takes 5 tokens of each colour than taking 1 token with the pentagram) But I think I cannot keep it from showing up. Otherwise I should show all 5 symbols again. So I added that symbol again as 1 of the possible symbols.

2. The word "Credit" should be bigger on the card so that wil be clear at first sight. When playing 1 game with these cards, you will get used to where you can find everything (as goes for any cardgame), but it should be clear to any newcomer too.

3. I removed "BOLD" from the abilities of the card, so it should be more easy to read. Maybe I'll use another font too. I'll be testing that.

4. My friend noticed that a card has three options when involving calamities. 1. "it aids" 2. "it aggravates" 3. "it modifies" (e.g. philosophy -civil war). He suggested that when it aids a calamity, it should show in green, when it aggravates, it should show in red (as I allready did), but when it modifies, it should not show green, but for example Orange or Purple.


What do you think.

for the remainder of the work on the layout, I won't use the images, because I've taken just a box for that. All images should fit in.

For a test, I made a few cards with this layout.

Please let me know, what you think.

I must say I like your latest suggestion. I like it so much I'm going to use it for 2.10

The only thing I don't really like with it is the green/red/purple calamity names. It's imho the only thing that distracts from the clean and fresh look of the cards.

Do you have a template or something for the layout. I'd prefer if it was SVG, but I'll take anything you do have...

Also, do you have a suggestion for how to make the back match the new front, while still staying black & white?

oh, yeah

as I said above. The lay-out designing is still in progress.

I want to make the back in Black and white. with only information about the advance in history (and the name and group of the card)

this needs no color, and will be pure black white.
I've not started editing the right text for that.

But first I want to be sure about the images.
That's not def. for me yet. (though I'm close to def.)



o.k. let's see about the colors on front. I agree with the fresh-look thing. Still I'm looking for a way to make it clearer to play. That's why I made a few cards in this layout, just to see how it works.

Of course, but you are already far better than what we got today...


OK, you think you'll fit all game-information regarding the cards on the front?
A few of them has quite a lot of text on the back today, so I don't know how well that would work out...


Flavour text for all the advances would be awesome, but are in no way necessary. If you are short in time, please do the drawings and layout first (Of course, if you choose to do something else, I'll take anything you do create anyway...)


As long as they are better than the current images, I'm satisfied, and to my eyes, they all are...
But I do know the feeling of a perfectionist that is still working on something. You don't want to know how many times I've read through the rulebook to find every last error, never succeeding....


OK

Well. I'm not short in time. Just perfectionist.

I don't give away work that isn't finished.

But hey. I just finished drawing last tuesday, so don;t be in a hurry.
I hope to finish the lay-out this week.

I'm taking all advices people give me, and try to get the best result.


2. Yes. I'm wanting to put all the attibutes on front. I could always make two different versions. When editing is done. All that's left is copy paste.
The editing is most work.

Ok.

I've made a few changes to the cards-lay-out. and made a few examples to see if it works.

1. I removed the colored calamity attributes.
2. I used a smaller font size for the attributes
3. I enlarged the credits symbols a bit.
4. I picked better colors for all 5. (equal for credit symbols awa titlebox)
5. I did some with text allignment.
6. I readded the Rock structure.
7. I made a cut-lines template and a white preview mask (that removed the cutting-marge. preview only)
8. I changed the font, size and colour of both the title and the cost.
9. I made 3 different steps of font size in the template.
(being tied to only Cultural Ascendancy and Provincial Empire that should fit in, made all the titles being too small. Titles as DEISM can be bigger. ofcourse not to big compared to CA and PE. I made previews of different wordlengthts)
10. Made some changes in the template. not visable.


Let me know what you think.

p.s. oh yeah. I mirrored the image of Naval warfare. Now it rides the ocean towards some place instead of riding back home. (a psychological truth that can be found in movies, paintings, comics and so. has to do with the fact that we all read from left to right in a story)

I generally like your improvements, but here are some comments for the perfectionists we both seems to be.


Much better


Well, Maiandra GD isn't too easy to read in small font-sizes. If such a small font-size is necessary (and I do think it is if we are to fit the entire game-rule information on the front), please consider another font. I would suggest you should try "Book Antiqua" and see how it looks.


Good, but I'm thinking they could still be somewhat larger.


Nice...
Much better with white boxes on the rock structure than only white or only rock structure.


Well, as I'm pretty sure we'll still want to print them 9 per page with only a single cut between each image, I don't think that that such cut-lines will be such a good idéa.
Also, how does the rock structure looks if one put two next to each other and cut 1mm to the side?


It looks like the font still is Maiandra GD for the cost, but what are you using for the name?
As I'm thinking about branding around the Black Chancery font I'd love to see if it would look nice for the card name.
As I've also been looking to possibly replace Maiandra GD completely (as it's giving me a far to modern vibe) I've been looking for something else to use for the digits on the advances and tradecards. The best free font I've found for the task so far is Carolingia so I would be interested in seeing how it would look in your layout.


The old advances had two main font sizes (16pt and 14pt) with only two names not fitting with either: "Wonder of the World" and "Cultural Ascendancy". CA used 12pt and WotW used a mix of 13pt ("Wonder" and "World") and 11pt (" of the "). I think using two font sizes, with two exceptions, was quite a good compromise.


I've also got a few other minor comments on your layout:

1. The number on the credits should preferably fit within the outline of the shape, as that looks much better on the credit tokens, and I'd prefer to use identical images on the credit tokens as on the advances themselves.

2. The line height in the attribute box is to small, at first look it's just a big mess of letters, no lines.

3. On some cards there is no paragraph breaks (just line breaks) between different calamity effects, while on others there are. I think there should always be paragraph breaks. If space runs out in the box it is better to reduce the size off all paragraph breaks on that card than to skip some.

4. I'm thinking it would probably look better if the specific credit was on a single line, with the number being bellow the "Credits" header. I'm also not sure if the text really should be as bold as it is right now.

well. That's a lot to work on.
im starting right now.

ok. at first I tried the fonts. (changed nothing else)

actually. I don't like both. I still prefer Verdana (as I used).
I may look modern, but these letters are to medieval or renaissance to me.

I also think they are both less easy to read.

for now I keep it. I'll work on the rest.

1. Carolingia was never intended for the title, only for the digits (cost and credits)!

2. I don't think Black Chancery is too bad. It could certainly use a slightly larger font size and some letterspacing, and perhaps even that white outline you have on your Verdana text, but I think it looks quite decent.
Imho medieval is better than modern, and ancient is hard to achieve without swapping alphabet...

I enlarged them some more. Think it reaches the max now. Or I should increase the box, which would reduce the attributes. Don;t think that's good.

The problem is is still the star and the triangle. You cannot get the digits fit in right. I'm happy when only those strech out of their symbols.



ok. these cutlines are preview only. When all is done, I make pages with 9 with only 1 cutline between cards. I'll make a endless loop on the rock structure so that it will fit the whole page.



Ok. let's first be sure of the font. Then on the size.


I prefer to work on best look for the cards, then change the tokens to look the same. those tokens are easily made.


I chaged all to BookAntiqua. I hate it when you see too many different fonts in one layout. may be taste. what do you think.



you're right. chaged all to regural size, resized it. I'll pick the largest text later to see the extreme.



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changed it

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