Accessible Games

Game Design Occupations Explained: Layout and Print Design

By: Jacob Wood, May 6, 2014 Publisher Advice

This week we have a guest post from Ruben Smith-Zempel. Ruben is a print designer with a lot of experience doing layout, cartography, and graphic design. See his “About the Author” section if you’d like to contact him.

Introduction

So your game is all written and you’ve collected all of your illustrations. Now you need to turn your raw elements into a finished product. It’s time for you to hire a print designer (or layout artist). This article will give you a brief overview of what the job entails and what questions you should ask when hiring a print designer.

 What to Expect

Print designers are responsible for combining your game text, illustrations, and other materials into the final product that is then sent to the printer. This is accomplished with the use of desktop publishing software, such as Adobe InDesign. The resulting file is then exported as a PDF (though other file formats …
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Game Design Occupations Explained: Writers

By: Jacob Wood, April 29, 2014 Publisher Advice

Introduction

I’ve spent the last few years learning everything I can about the RPG design process. As a small press publisher, I know I need to wear a lot of design hats myself, but there are certain skills I just don’t possess. I can write, proofread, and do my own page layout, but every author needs a good editor and most authors don’t also do art (I am one of those “most authors”). The tricky thing is figuring out who does what, how much it costs to get that done, and—perhaps most importantly—what your fellow designers need from you so they can do their job.

One of the most important skills any designer needs to learn early on is how to communicate with freelancers. Whether you’re hiring authors to help write for you, hiring editors to make sure your manuscript isn’t littered with errors, or contracting artwork to make your ideas come …
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