How important is color?

[Flyspeck23]

Artwork's main focus should be to set the mood - IMHO B&W does this better than color most of the time, but there are exceptions - Superhero books for instance.
And I'm buying RPG books because of the text, not because of the illustrations. Of course bad artwork can be a turn-off...

 

[Conaill]

I don't really care much for fancy color illustrations. Can be nice, but that's definitely not what I'm buying the book for.

I can think of only one rpg book in recent history where the quality of the color illustrations had a small positive effect on me buying the book (WoT, if you must know - and I probably wouldn't have bought it anyway if it hadn't been 1/2 off).

On the other hand, there has been more than one book that I've stayed away from because of the poor quality of the color illustrations! I've definitely never had that reaction with B/W. It seems like for the same price it's much easier to get great BW than barely acceptable color...

 

[Eosin the Red]

It think the key here is done well!!

Dungeon did this very well before the color switch - IMO. Most of the other mags do not do it well - they have some varibility ranging from down right icky (poor paper, poor illio, & poor typeset) to working well with what they got.

 

[Wombat]

Quality first.

If you can't get good art, go for no art.

Colour, if the art is good, is a nice bonus, but usually not worth the extra price (**coughcough**Decipher**coughcough**).

In the game there are Mechanics, Flavour Texts, Layout, and Editing, in no particular order.

Art, however, is dead last in importance. And given the quality, and lack thereof, of the art in some books, I would prefer if they left the art out altogether.

 

[Treebore]

I prefer black and white. I came to realize just how much back when I used to read the Elfquest comic. When they reprinted all the B&W in color the art lost a lot of its impact for me. To me Wendy Pini's illustrations were much more vibrant and alive in B&W inked by her ex-hubby Richard, than when they colorized it. I quit reading that series because of their switch to color. My wife tells me I didn't miss much because she says the story quailty dropped off a lot as well.

In terms of it being used in game books, I am paying for game info, not pictures. If you want to sell me pictures do a photo album type book of nothing but art.

In game publications I want meaningful wordage aided by pictures and diagrams. Not colorized art to fluff up the sale price.

If the publishers of d20 products didn't have the very legitimate excuse of selling to a small market, with an average sales run of 5,000 books, I would be disgusted by how overpriced your products are. However, I understand that smaller print runs mean higher costs, thus smaller profits, even with the higher price tags. So I accept it as a necessary price to pay for something I love to do to be supported.

 

[Pants]

Good color is oftentimes much better than a good B&W piece, IMO. However, I often find that no matter how hideous a B&W piece may look, a really bad color illustration is MUCH worse. So it works both ways.

I'd prefer more color in products, but it isn't necessary.

 

[hunter1828]

I'm willing to pay more for good color artwork, but good B&W artwork is ok in some situations. For instance, I don't have a problem with the softcover splatbooks being all B&W interior art, but I was really disappointed in the A&EG being all B&W interior when it was a hc book.

But that's just me...

hunter1828

 

[Mouseferatu]

I guess I should have included this sort of thing on the poll, but...

For those of you willing to pay extra for color, how much? (No, I swear I'm not doing research for a company; I really am just curious. )

Me personally, I actually prefer B&W for many sorts of products, so the idea of paying extra for color throws me. I just want to know how much you're willing to do. Five percent cost difference over the same product with B&W art? Ten percent? Twenty?

 

[Angcuru]

While I like B&W in and of itself, color give an illustration more depth and meaning. And looks better, in it's own way. B&W leaves a lot to the imagination, and color is exact and specific. When looking at in illustration of something specific, I like it to be in color so I know exactly what this thing being describe looks like.

However, I only like color if the coloring is done well. I've seen some really horrible coloring jobs in my time.

 

[Mercule]

I don't consider color a value-adder in the least. Right now, my favorite D&D artwork is the sketchbook thingies at the beginings of the Core book chapters.

Hardbound, on the other hand, is a big seller for me. The book has to be a reasonable size (Psi Handbook, is probably a good size). I don't want Dragon magazines to be hardbound or anything. So far, WotC has done a pretty good job of picking which books to make hardbound in 3E.