Mahoujo Cardfront (Not a real card)

[Tokimo]

Working design with some sample content thrown in.

The orange and yellow colors will change based on card type. The white rules areas will be as big or small as it can get away with (more art = better).

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[Trevor]

Working design with some sample content thrown in.

The orange and yellow colors will change based on card type. The white rules areas will be as big or small as it can get away with (more art = better).

It looks pretty good but I have a few suggestions.

I think it is a bad idea to have varying game text box sizes. That will make cards look random and nonuniform. I'm a big advocate of large art, but uniformity of design is more important. Use about a 3rd of the card for game text. It is needed on more complicated cards, and it can be used for flavor text on less complicated cards. Also, a little white space is ok and even has the subtle effect of making the layout look more ordered.

I suggest you use a more condensed game text font. The one you have looks nice, but Times or some other font might be a wiser choice in the long run. Times was created for newspapers and it was designed to fit as much text in an area while still looking nice.

You currently have the subtitle as the same size font as the title. I suggest you make the subtitle much smaller. It saves space, and looks more organized.  Check out cards from lord of the rings for an example.

I suggest you include collector info. Something like "01-R-123" is all it takes.

Instead of "HP", you should use an icon, perhaps a heart. Or at the very least, don't use HP. Use H. HP looks like something from Final Fantasy 1.

Card layout is more about CCG Design than art. I think I will move this to the CCG design section.

[Alastair]

I've gotta agree with Trevor here. I'd definately pick a size for the text box and stick with it (and for me, the size I'd pick would be about double that of the example card if not a little bit more).

[Tokimo]

I'm experimental on the varying text box sizes at this point. After I start getting art I'll create two sets and see how I feel about it when looking at actual cards side by side with varied on consistent rule block sizes.

Final font will also be tested at some point.

My mistake on the subtitle, it's actually a card type (In reality that should either be a friend or girlfriend card, not a creepy little girl card). I have made a slightly revised version that makes the title bold, which seems to do a good job pulling focus away from the type.

Collector info will be included. Design philosophy that I won't be doing rarity, but card numbers is a good idea. Once again, added in a revised version.

I like the heart for HP. I don't mind the HP still, but I probably will experiment with hearts.

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[Tokimo]

New card versions.

Notice in #2 that the text area at the top is the same size, it's just higher and the yellow cost gem has a metal border running around it (I've been playing with this a lot on card backs). I switched the HP to a heart (based on the improved heart on the backs that I haven't uploaded yet). I added a purple gem to put the set symbols in (Now I just need to get a good symbol for a genesis of sorts) with the same border wrap. You'll also notice that I pushed the borders 'outwards' about 4/10" 4/100". I forgot to nudge the text in the text box down with the border. Whoops.

I'm very happy with version 2.

Number #3 compacts the title area to try and increase the image just that much more. I'm indecisive on if it was a good or bad idea. More art, but as a result if I ever choose to make a card type with a lower case g y or q in it, it's going to be grazing the title/art separator (At this point I don't have anything like that planned though, and I do have a few types planned that won't be in the first set).

I'm less than 100% thrilled with version 3. I think I might revert to version 2 going forward.

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[Alastair]

I like #2 better than #3 as well, but I still feel that your bottom text box is about half to three quarters of the size it should be.

[Tokimo]

The flexible rule boxes are experimental for now. Once I have enough cards to start playing the game with I'll give all four versions a try and pick one for real (fixed/flexible, opaque/transparent). I figure if I go with fixed I'll probably put the divider on the lower edge of her more visible cuff, which is about 250% of it's current size (although that would be tested with a variety of text heavy cards to see what the optimal height was likely to be).

[Tokimo]

Apparently Wizards has beaten me to the punch on flexible rule blocks. I'm hoping that this isn't a thing for anything but Planeswalkers, but it looks like one of the new Planeswalker cards from Worldwake has 4 abilities and a correspondingly larger rule space due to it. Planeswalkers in MTG of course also feature a transparent rules block

(link is to a worldwake card, don't follow if you don't want to know) http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=98971&d=1260913910 (link is to a worldwake card, don't follow if you don't want to know)

I don't think the flexible space is actually a good idea for magic because they put information on that divider. I think moving the card type is a not good idea, but perhaps they felt it was okay for a PW card since they are already immediately obvious as such. (notice how I am not putting information on my image/rules divider in case I decide I want to make the rules block flexible).

[Ripplez]

flexible rule blocks arent a new idea per se. do what needs to be done to get your cards across, as long as you dont go overboard, it wont be a bad thing