Taking in Feedback

Well hello again everyone!

So soon? You may be wondering…though I suspect if you’ve been reading these, you can guess why this update has arrived as quickly as it has!

Y’all have been heard, and I have been busy.

For folks who are still confused, I respect not everyone has been hanging around their inbox for the past day like me; a new card front and back design were shared and the overall consensus seems to be…no thank you.

So now is the time to talk about what I plan to do about it. Before I do that though, I would like to thank Anna Posey for her work, and make it clear that she was working with my art direction. My intention was in fact to give the cards mass appeal because I believed that would make them…appealing? I honestly was not prepared for the love most of you had for the original design, though that seems very silly to me now considering how many times it was specifically pointed out to me as an aspect of the cards people liked. Let’s chalk this up to the art blindness referenced in my last update…

That said, I do think there were real issues with the original design that I want to address, and there are aspects of the new design that solved those issues.

Here are some of the key things I took away from everyone’s comments:

• The warm colors were preferred

• Folks missed the hand-made illustrations

• The checkered border was not working for many people

• The old designs were more whimsical

• The new designs felt like they had too much empty space.

As of writing this, I have read all of them though, I confess, I did stop responding to them once I decided to write this update. Hopefully I can address most of the concerns brought up now, though if not, the comments are still very much open.

After reading how people were feeling (and I’m going to assume that folks feeling positively about the change took their chance to comment) I reconsidered the direction I had given Anna. After taking a hard look at what we had discussed, I realized that I was intentionally removing traces of myself from the design. We can skip over the rationale behind this (or irrationale?) and get to the part where I laugh hysterically.

I recognize now that my work is exactly what you all showed up to support. So I went back to the drawing board. I went outside, touched grass, as the kids say, and considered what it was that I really needed to fix in the original card design. Here is my list:

• The illustrated border is too dense, and doesn’t read well at the size it will be printed.

• The illustrated border takes up too much space on the card, and makes the artwork smaller than necessary.

• The design ratios could be improved.

• The Illustrated border must be vectorized to print well at a small size

• The illustrated border needs more contrast to break it up visually.

So, after coming to these conclusions, I printed out the new designs by Anna, and biked to the library downtown. While there, I wallowed in some barely related artistic inspiration, then began to draw a new border design using the framework that Anna had set up. The art is much bigger on the new designs, and the font is perfect. What it needed was a little time and attention from me. I also recognize that the warm yellow color was a big draw for folks. That too, will be reinstituted.

The length at which I’ve described my thinking process is bordering on rude at this point, so I’m just going to share the sketch I have. This is hopefully a successful marriage between the two vastly different design directions:

Please note: The images above are sketches of my intentions, not final images. Those of you with a keen eye may notice I literally used the paint bucket tool to try out different colored backgrounds for the card back pattern. Those of you with a less keen eye may still observe that the illustration is not, in fact, The Fool. Hopefully though, the image above will serve as a temperature check for people here.

I think I covered what my areas of focus were for this design in the bulleted lists above, so now I’ll discuss why I think this sketch will work:

• The linework has more breathing room, details are less densely packed.

• The rat is back!

• The artwork is a little more chunky, which I think will read better at the small size.

• I made a concentrated effort to break up the values in a more rhythmic way. I was actually inspired here by the checkered border!

• The addition of the white also helps break up the design, and makes it feel less dense.

In case anyone is wondering why I keep bringing up how I want more space for the art even though there seems to be a fair bit of space along the edge of the card: that space is outside the “safe” zone for printing. So if I want to avoid any nasty little mistakes, I must keep the fingers and toes of my artwork behind the glass so to speak.

As for the card backs, I’m rather undecided. I agree with those of you who feel the new design doesn’t pair as well with the old front, but I also think I’m just more drawn to the new pattern. Color variations may be the answer, but this is something I plan to stew on. The front is my focus at the moment, and finalizing that will make deciding on the back much easier.

With that out of the way, there were a few additional comments I would like to address, as I covered a fair bit of progress in the last update, and it wasn’t all design related.

First, I had a couple folks mention that they would like more text in the guidebook. More specifically, details about the chickens was requested.

What I’ve decided about that currently is including the chicken breeds is a great idea. I will be doing that where it’s applicable. As for details about the individual chickens, I think names may be doable, but I want to be sure I have enough space to provide context for the names, as they would be confusing without it.

As for more details, like a more in depth thinking process behind each card….that may need to be a separate project. While the cards are off being printed, I may take the time to write those thoughts for each card down, and share that here. I may even go so far as to make a zine about it!

My real pie in the sky dream is to have all of my chicken cards available to see online in a bit of a simulator, where you can draw a random card, and read more about it. That dream is very much not in the scope of this project, I’m afraid to say. If the update sounds interesting to you though, please let me know!

Phew!

That is all I have for this update. My goal was to get this pivot announced promptly, once I had decided on what needed to be done. I hope I haven’t caused anyone any undue panic….this project is still in progress, so I’m hoping I’ve convinced some of you to put down the scissors!

All joking aside, I really do appreciate everyone taking the time to share their opinions on the last update. While I tend to prefer having total control over my work, there is no replacement for honest feedback. Doing what I think is best is one thing, but being completely oblivious to the feelings of others is quite another.

Until the next update, thank you all very much!

A little peek at my day: reconnecting with what inspires me, and sketching a new border design.