Game Covers 2.0

[Karimi]

Some of these are just amazing, are we about to see a change in game covers ?

http://kotaku.com/5145909/a-second-serving-of-classic-reimagined-game-covers

[Nappi]

Some of these are also worth checking:

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=357454

[elmuerte]

don't like a single one

I think that thread of NeoGAF had some good designs

Edited April 28, 2009 by elmuerte

[Jake]

  Karimi said:

Some of these are just amazing, are we about to see a change in game covers ?

Asking "are we about to see a change in game covers" is like asking if we're about to see a change in DVD covers, by which I mean, "no, unfortunately."

It might mean that "collector's editions" of games end up getting classier treatments, but that already happens often enough.

DVD covers turn this

into this

And those are surely not the best movie posters or the worst DVD covers

I wish that publishers (both of games and DVDs) saw their covers as serving a purpose more similar to movie posters or book covers*, but unfortunately they see them serving a purpose more closely tied to magazine and comic book advertisements than as eyecatching works which inform/entice you through their sheer design. The number of times I've wished that a DVD I bought in a store just had the same poster as the movie is so high it's depressing.

* Note that many of these movies and books aren't small or indie or niche or collectors-only titles -- they're often for large, mainstream, popular releases.

+ Dunno why there are too Clooney movies there. I didn't notice, amusingly enough, until I saw the two DVD covers next to each other with giant Clooney heads on them.

Edited April 28, 2009 by Jake

[Scrobbs]

Back when I bought a lot of CDs and LPs, I used to buy some music purely on the basis of the cover art (if I didn't know about the artist). You got some turkeys, but also some right gems. In general it was worth the punt I reckon.

[elmuerte]

ah, this thread: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=357454

there are a few awesome covers

[OssK]

Fuck! The cover of Violence by Slavoj Žižek is awesome, I so have to get that book X•

About what you said Jake you're an awesome person so you (as everybody else) should definitely check Jacek Utko's TED talk if you haven't already I just fucking love what he said and I think it applies to a lot of things. If it's not just functional, it'll have an appeal as an object rather than a random screen of the game burried under a shitton of logos and GAME FOR WINDOWS PS3 RATED U FOR UNREADABLE AND PUBLISHED BY UBISOFT BY THE WAY AND DEVELOPED BY...

[toblix]

[Shakesbeard]

  elmuerte said:

don't like a single one

I think that thread of NeoGAF had some good designs

Oh come on dude, you're like school in the summer

  Reveal hidden contents

no class

Some of those capture the spirit of the games perfectly without the usual gaudiness of modern game covers. Although those have a special place in my heart as well (see: Original Mega Man series + Mega Man 9)

[DanJW]

I like the SA ones more than the NeoGAF ones. Or at least, I think there are fewer misses in their thread. It's depressing when someone posts an entry that misses the point entirely.

[elmuerte]

  Shakesbeard said:

Oh come on dude, you're like school in the summer

  Reveal hidden contents

no class

  Reveal hidden contents

f███ █u█ ☺

[ThunderPeel2001]

I love these things. The Kotaku stuff is lovely for the most part (some remind me of science books from the 70s...). The GAF Collection also has some lovely stuff, but a lot are marred by poor font choices.

For example: Love this, but why-oh-why mar it with that "college" font? Still, awesome cover aside from that.

If I had the shelf space, time and energy, I'd definitely print a few of these off and use them over the originals

[Sergey]

  Karimi said:

Some of these are just amazing, are we about to see a change in game covers ?

http://kotaku.com/5145909/a-second-serving-of-classic-reimagined-game-covers

Yuck! I hate how they took a bunch of great book designs, then used MSPaint to erase all the nice Helvetica lettering and wrote a game name in bold Arial instead. It's a horrible insult at the design community.

[Karimi]

How can you not love the delightful simplicity and the beautiful adaption of such a great style ?? Bah , you are all fools !

[toblix]

YOU ALL DUCK!

[OssK]

  toblix said:

YOU ALL DUCK!

SWEET! Can I be the duck of hazard?!

[Nevsky]

I much prefer the Gaf Collection set - definitely more 'hits' than 'misses' in that one. I really like the Criterion design work anyway, so that's a good basis.

Also, I think the Penguin Classics-inspired pseudo-book design idea grew quite stale quite quickly - I haven't seen many that measure up to the original pieces that kicked it off, designed by Olly Moss (flickr set here), which were designed to mimic the design aesthetics very closely, after a similar set of film posters he designed, called 'Eight Films in Black and Red' (here).

Incidentally, we were at university together, and were in a couple of the same seminar groups. It's quite weird to be reading your daily blogs and sites, and then see a semi-friend get mentioned.

[Karimi]

  Nevsky said:

I much prefer the Gaf Collection set - definitely more 'hits' than 'misses' in that one. I really like the Criterion design work anyway, so that's a good basis.

Also, I think the Penguin Classics-inspired pseudo-book design idea grew quite stale quite quickly - I haven't seen many that measure up to the original pieces that kicked it off, designed by Olly Moss (flickr set here), which were designed to mimic the design aesthetics very closely, after a similar set of film posters he designed, called 'Eight Films in Black and Red' (here).

Incidentally, we were at university together, and were in a couple of the same seminar groups. It's quite weird to be reading your daily blogs and sites, and then see a semi-friend get mentioned.

The design he seems to be mimicing is more of the Saul Bass, 60s-80s posters. Kinda like the style used in "Burn after Reading".

What was he like at university ?! Was he awesome , oh man, I wish I knew someone famous too...

[Nevsky]

  Karimi said:

The design he seems to be mimicing is more of the Saul Bass, 60s-80s posters. Kinda like the style used in "Burn after Reading".

What was he like at university ?! Was he awesome , oh man, I wish I knew someone famous too...

Yeah, he definitely went for the Bass as well.

We had a few mutual friends at university. I only got to know him properly in the last year, when we shared a few modules. He was the guy who brought Maus in for the seminar on Holocaust literature/film - I hung out with him a bit, talking about comics and video games, but not enough to get beyond acquaintance/chum level. I didn't realise until later that he had some vague internet acclaim as a designer (he's had some really popular t-shirts on Threadless).

Hey, I wish him well, and he's quite a talented dude - so I'm happy he's getting recognition. It's just so weird - we only graduated last year, and he's getting commissioned by the New York Times and GQ, getting nods from Neil Gaiman, Kotaku, Edge etc. Curse him and his secondary talent (our degree was in English).

[brkl]

The GAF ones don't really appeal to me. With this exception:

Oh, and this:

Most others on GAF just look like regular box covers, except a bit worse. The best of the lot (not including the originals, which are all great) is the Hitman: Blood Money cover on Kotaku, IMO.

Humm, okay, the later pages on GAF seem to have good ones.

[Jake]

The GAF Bioshock and Noby Noby covers are great, for instance.

The Internet is generally bad at typography, which is understandable since it's 1) hard, and 2) expensive, so I don't get too judgemental about it in PS threads ( though, when someone does it well, it's a treat.)

The ones linked by Offworld are all excellent, for instance.

Edited April 29, 2009 by Jake

[DanJW]

I just don't like the ones that re-use existing promotional art or screenshots. Like Jake, I'm not too pissed off when they're a tad lazy with the font. they're all first drafts anyway.

[miffy495]

I'm glad someone linked that Killer 7 cover already. It's by far my favorite. So damn pretty. I went through that thread a couple of weeks ago, but should probably look again. Seems like some good new ones have cropped up.

[ThunderPeel2001]

  Jake said:

The GAF Bioshock and Noby Noby covers are great, for instance.

The Internet is generally bad at typography, which is understandable since it's 1) hard, and 2) expensive, so I don't get too judgemental about it in PS threads ( though, when someone does it well, it's a treat.)

The ones linked by Offworld are all excellent, for instance.

Yeah, it's just a shame to see some great covers ruined by by poor design choices... Surely the thing they were trying to avoid?

But you're right, there's some truly beautiful stuff there

[OssK]

We could make our own cover thread and beat theirs, if you're not skilled in photoshop you just pitch your design idea and I'll try and do them, does that make anyone go nuts or will I be alone on there ?