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Message: <blockquote data-quote="rpace" data-source="post: 1053565" data-attributes="member: 7078">1. Would you like to see one artist showcased, or multiple artists?Depending on the lead time, one artist could probably help shape the final look of the work and make it a better package over all.  I come from a book illustration/design background where you usually only work with one illustrator and the choices in font, layout and even paper are usually informed by the style and palette of the artist.This is almost never the case for RPG books -- forcing a reliance on design where the art and artist are usually plugged into the book after everything else is done.  Thus the reliance on grid-sized art assignments: 1/2 page horizontal or vertical and 1/4 page art descriptions.  I think averyone can agree that this has lead to a certain sameness in the look of most D20 products.The nature of the beast, I guess.If you are going to use multiple artists, I do suggest you use a small number of topic-appropriate illustrators.  Either each artist does a chapter or subject -- if one illustrator does all the maps, the reader will have an easier time understanding to visual style and content, for example.  The same is pretty much required if you're doing a series of illustrations on costume or races -- derivations in style could lead to reader misunderstandings of information. 2. 144-page softcover B&W for $25 or color for $30? or a 144-page softcover B&W for 25$ or hardback B&W for 32$?A colour book will probably get you more mileage -- if I were in the position to decide I'd go for colour & hardcover -- though 144 pages is mightly slim for a HC book (page count seems odd, too -- usually the page counts are in multiples of 32).  Atlas' Nyambe book was well done in that it combined a colour signature within a B&W book.   3. Would you like to see a few full-page illustrations or would you dislike the "waste of space"?Any illustration that doesn't add to the information within the book is a waste of space.  Full page illustrations should only be assigned if a full-page is needed to get the information across.  A complicated cityscape, piece of architecture or series of costume comparisons might need the size -- a portrait of a single NPC or critter shouldn't.Less art results in larger type rather than more text, in my experience, so the idea that art is bumping content is usually unfounded. 4. I'd like every piece of art to show an idea from the book in practice, whether or not its two people arguing around a fire near the section about cultural types of dispute resolution or simply showing a miner when talking about mines. Do ya'll think artwork is "better" when used in such manner? Yes.  Art should be there to support the text instead of merely decorate pages or provide filler.  Used in the latter manner we start running into a situation where art becomes a waste of space.~Richard</blockquote>

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