A list of Artists and Graphic Designers working in the boardgame industry.
This blog, even more than most of what I write, owes its existence to Jamey Stegmaier’s blog on the subject. In fact, the main part of this blog is largely cribbed from Jamey’s https://stonemaiergames.com/200-artists-and-graphic-designers-whose-work-i-love/ this is a blog where Jamey has put up an excel sheet of, much as it says, 200 artists and designers that he enjoys the work of. This is an amazing resource and I strongly suggest that people take advantage of it. There are a couple of minor issues with it. Firstly, it has a few dead links in it, which isn’t too shocking considering the blog is a year and a half old. Secondly, it is based more on Jamey’s excellent judgement on the artistic direction of the people involved than in their availability.
I’ve tweaked this resource to make it more useable for me personally, so I’m setting a link to it here and I would love it if people could help me to make it more useful still. Firstly, I’ve taken off any artist whose website link was dead in the original. Secondly, I’ve taken off the artistic judgement on the work involved partly because several of the artists have shifted and evolved their styles since the original and I’m sure they will continue to do so, partly because most artists can shift their styles if asked, but mostly because this quite a subjective thing, and much as I don’t necessarily agree with Jamey, you probably won’t agree with me. I’ve also removed the ‘best known for’ column because its not something that I found useful for figuring out if I wanted to work with an artist. Instead I’ve added a column for the last year in which an artist on the list was contacted and responded to a request for illustration or graphic design work, personally I find this to be a more useful resource as artists drop off from taking open commissions and I tend to shortlist artists before contacting them I’d like to include a list that has a high chance of getting responses.
Now, clearly, I’m just one person and I don’t contact artists that I have no intention of using, so I’ve only hit up a relatively small percentage of the artists on this list. So please, if you’ve contacted an artist on this list, or if you do so, more recently than the last listed date and they both respond and are available for open commissions, please post below this blog, respond with a comment, or just e-mail us about it so we can keep it as an up to date resource. Furthermore, if you’re an artist on this list and you’re active, or you would like to be added to the list, let us know and I’ll happily put you on.
A good artist and graphic designer is vital to the success of your game and getting a good one will make your life hugely easier. They’re a big, but very worthwhile investment for a new game, so try to put the work in on getting a good one. Hopefully this will make things a little easier.