Best damn RPG product design and interior art you've ever seen?

[Shapermc]

CoC is absolutly amazing. When I look at it (flip through) I always find my self reading it. I have no good reason, I just read and read and. . .

Very well designed and the layout (order the information is presented in) is very easy to follow.

 

[blaster219]

Although technically not interior art, yet . The artwork in production for the game Zaon is brilliant. The CGI being done for the ships is absolutly amazing, we're talking ILM starwars on speed quality here.

 

[Darkness]

I don't own the book, but I think it'd be Nobilis.

That, or some WW book or other.

 

[Nifft]

I haven't seen many of the books mentioned so far, so in my ignorance, I'm going to nominate WotC's Manual of the Planes. It's beautiful but nearly all the beauty also conveys useful information.

-- Nifft

 

[aNenuphar]

Oddly enough, I think the single most beautiful (visually) as well as entertaining RPG supplement I've ever seen is an ancient publication from ICE called, "The Iron Wind".

The maps are gorgeous; the information text is amusing and stylish (I'm not sure I like the mechanical crunchy bits, since they seem to lack the 'fantasy' flavour of D&D - they are almost anachronistic); the framework of the module is well-handled, and it's useful.

I own the 2nd edition of "The Iron Wind." Does anyone know of a copy of the 1st edition? I've never even seen one.

Alix

 

[Monte At Home]

I have an original Iron Wind. Visually, it's nothing to get excited about, but the content is cool.

The reason that that book and so many ICE products from that period have so many amazing maps was that about half the editorial/design staff there (or so) were actually trained architects. Great maps. Just amazing.

 

[Maggan]

A swedish rpg monster book

For the number one swedish rpg Drakar och Demoner (DoD), called Jorges Bestiarium (Jhorge's Bestiary).

Cover can be seen here:

http://www.riotminds.com/bilder/produkter/stJorges.jpg

Interior art by Peter Bergting, Alvaro Tapia and Jim Nelson, stunning to say the least. And layout and design by Dan Algstrand. Sorry for not finding pictures right now...

And I really, really, really liked D&D3e PH, DMG and MM. Blew me away.

Cheers

Maggan

 

[Laslo Tremaine]

Man-O-man, but this is one of my major pet peves!

{pendantic rant}

There is a tremendous difference between cool production design and good production design. I will grudgingly agree that White Wolf does some cool stuff, it's edgy and designy, but it is also often illegible.

Engel is a perfect example. The design is fairly striking, but it is too damn hard on the eyes. Too airy, the headline font is almost illegible (Farscape wins the prize for this though), and I feel my eyes glaze over whenever I look at it...

Now I really don't care how arty you get when you are doing flavor text, you are usually only going to read it once. But when it comes to rules, I want maximum legibility.

I want simple serif body text. I want sections headings that are readable and stand out from the body. I want two or three equal sized columns of text with vertical gutters (CoC's biggest failing). I want tables that are clear and easily convey information. I don't want screened back crap behind my text (like the PHB's godforsaken lines or other game's stupid art).

The purpose of a rules section is to convey information clearly, and that can be easily referenced over and over. Too often arty production design completely defeats that goal.

{/pendantic rant}

Edited for formatting

 

[Marius Delphus]

Speaking solely of graphic design/DTP, the 1E stuff was almost uniformly uninspiring. I found the Mystara 2E boxed adventure "Mark of Amber" to be the best TSR graphic design I saw. The Ravenloft sourcebook "Carnival" was close, but wasn't that WOTC? Nowadays, I'm much enamored of the FRCS hardback.

 

[aNenuphar]

Monte, what are the differences between 1st and 2nd edition "Iron Wind"? I've always wanted to know if there were significant structural changes or just flavour changes.

Alix