I'm Back In The Saddle Again!

Did some work on the card back design today.

The first step of that process was importing the Iroquois Confederacy flag graphic into Inkscape, and creating a pattern of sorts based on it. I made a few modifications to the pattern design. I gave the tree symbol at the centre smooth sides, as opposed to notched/variegated sides, and I centred all the elements along a horizontal axis instead of having some of the horizontal bands and the tree lower than other elements.

Remember that I'm placing my custom shield logo on this card back also; so the border pattern has to look good around that logo.

So, with the shield logo in place on the card back's centre, I then played around with how to arrange the pattern on the card back for best appearance. I first tried developing a border that would paralled the card back's perimeter; but it just didn't look quite right.

My next attempt, and the one that seemed to look quite good, was to put two bands of the pattern across the card back, one across the top, and one across the bottom. The pattern, both top and bottom, is oriented the same way; the shield logo is non symmetrical across the horizontal axis, so there seemed little point in mirroring the border pattern.

The final step was to determine the color of the card back's field and of the border. There are two distinct types of cards in the game, which in the commercial editions by Mayfair Games, uses different card backs to distinguish them. I figured I'd take a similar approach; it's logical. In my case, though, I decided to use the same card back design all around, and simply use colors as the differentiating aspect of the card backs.

I went in two directions with the card back colors. I first tried a colored field, with white border pattern, in a number of different muted colors; the resulting card backs look pretty good in my opinion - but I'm probably biased. Check them out:



I then tried a white field with brightly/dark colored border patterns; this turned out quite nice too. Check them out:



So, now it seems that I have ten viable card back designs, but I only need two; maybe a third one for the building cost cards, and the special cards - the largest army, and longest road cards.

The bulk of the cards will be resource cards, and development cards - only two card types; so I think the best solution will be to use one back with a colored field one of the card types, and one back with a white field for the other card type, then choose yet a different back for the special cards.

I'll decide on the specific color choice later; but I'm leaning towards purple 'cause that's my favorite color.