Magic the Gathering Blog
MtG Design Space: Redesigning the Magic Card Template
I recently posted about a new philosophy for the design of Magic cards, "Full Art, Whenever Possible". I believe that full-art cards make for a more wonderous play experience than cards bogged down by text - especially flavour text.
In that post I raised the prospect of the card design itself being updated and, crazily, that I might have a crack at doing so. Now, full disclosure: I Am Not A Graphic Designer, nor that great of a photoshopper. However, I wanted to get across some ideas, and so have mocked up some graphics and cards that I hope convey the spirit of my ideas, if not a perfect execution of them.
This post has taken a fair bit longer than I expected to put together. Clearly, when I started this mini-project, I bit off far more than I could chew. I leapt straight into redesign without giving due consideration about what I was attempting to do and the reasoning behind it.
As such this post has kind-of grown and grown and made me groan, but I hope you get something out of it.
Why Redesign At All?
Firstly, I believe that a picture truly does paint a thousand words, and that the art on Magic cards should be maximised wherever possible. Most players would recognise the picture of a Baneslayer Angel on sight. But can you recognise which card the following flavour text is from: "When the earth shudders, the sky overflows"? Flavour text currently steals valuable space from where the focus of a playing card should be - the art.
Secondly, Magic is moving in various ways away from a paper medium. Although the paper medium will never disappear (I hope - it's my favourite way of playing, across the kitchen table) Wizards future certainly lies in embracing the digital. Unfortunately words & text are terrible ways to communicate visually. Can you imagine playing World of Warcraft if every icon was represented by text instead? it would be virtually unplayable. Magic card design must adapt to the digital medium in order to maximise it's opportunities in that space.
Thirdly, Magic has been around for over fifteen years, and in that time proved itself to be adaptable to its environment - this is what has allowed it to persist through overwhelming competition and changing economic climates. When you inspect other CCGs and LCGs in the market, none are presented as beautifully as MtG. Yu-Gi-Oh looks like it's drawn by fifteen year olds with manga hard-ons, and I continue in my inability to tell any Pokemon apart from any other. MtG is in the unique position of stamping it's total authority over CCG art for years to come. However, this will not take place unless there is a willingness to bite the bullet and overhaul the base card template that Magic has been clinging to.
With these three points in mind, and the fundamental belief that in order to achieve a philosophy of "Full Art, Whenever Possible" a redesign is required, the next step is to inspect what needs to be redesigned.
So What Needs To Be Redesigned?"
A Magic Card is conveys a significant chunk of information in a tight package. Making that package even tighter is no easy task, and no doubt my first stab at this will be off the mark. Regardless, here's all the information you can find on a Magic Card:
Certain elements of the above are already represented visually & numerically:
* Mana Cost
* Set
* Rarity
* Power
* Toughness
* Card No.
Certain elements can not be represented visually or numerically:
* Card Name
* Mechanics (Abilities, etc)
* Artwork
* Artist
* Flavour Text
* Copyright
This leaves the following open for design exploration:
* Card Type
* Card Subtype
* Keywords
Then there is also the necessity of some sacrifices. I propose the following:
* Flavour Text
So this leaves me with some static information that is unlikely to change how it's presented, some room for improvement, and a small amount of dataloss. Let's get into redesigning.
How Might We Resign The Template
In maximising artwork and minimising waste, it's important to knowledge that Card Space is premium. Anything that wastes it should go. When looking at the base, original template, it became clear that there was one, constant, misuse of card space; the Keyword/Mechanic/Flavour Text box. This was the one area of the card that existed regardless of whether it was used or not. For instance, if a card has no mana cost (eg. Hypergenesis) the casting cost simply disappears. The same is true for Power/Toughness on a instant or sorcery.
However, even on the most vanilla of creatures, the Text box generally takes up 40% of the card space. And it's the ugliest 40% of the card.
Here are the major types of text found in the text box:
1. Short Keyword Text (eg. Flying, First Strike)
2. Long Keyword Text (eg. Morph, Kicker)
3. Short Mechanic Text (eg. Lightning Bolt)
4. Long Mechanic Text (eg. Hive Mind)
5. Flavour Text
I was (eagerly) prepared to kill off Flavour Text entirely, so (5) went immediately. (2), (3) & (4) were clearly too difficult to template into graphics (after all, what graphic on earth could quickly explain Warp World visually?) and therefore had to stay. But (1) was ripe for the picking.
I took my cues from WotC's best exploration of the template, the Future Shifted cards from Future Sight. Here's a reminder image:
Although the redesign didn't nearly go far enough, it sensibly provided cues for future redesigns by bringing the icons from Magic Online across to the paper format.
As such I removed the Card Type and replaced it with the Future Sight icons. I then set forth and took a look at a number of keywords to see if I could make some moderately passable icons to represent them, based on the Future Sight style.
I then used the visual cues around the mana graphics to create a space for representing the icons on the card.
But what to do about that huge text box?
After thinking about it some time, I realised I really didn't want it to be there if at all possible; taking from online and digital mediums, I really only wanted it to be there when I hovered over it, like a popup box. And out of that came the idea of a pop-up Text Box.
This model means that cards that require a small amount of text could use the "quarter text box" template, and cards that required the usual amount of text could use the "half text box" template. Either way, this maximises the amount of art real estate available.
In the end, here are three examples of cards under the new design:
Now, clearly I'm not the worlds best photoshopper or icon designer, but I hope they give the impression of what I'm trying to accomplish. All the necessary information to play the game has been communicated by the new template, but the cards have a much higher visual impact. The art, for which so much effort has been put into (well, not the 2nd photoshop effort for the lightning bolt), really shines, as well it should.
Pros and Cons
Any change brings both benefits and downsides. Here's some I've considered and had twittered at me.
PROS:
* Higher Visual Impact: The new design certainly has a higher visual impact than the old design with no loss of necessary data. Unlike the promotional textless cards that WotC produces, these cards retain all the necessary play information, simply in other forms than they originally appeared. This gives both the advantage of maximising the art, as well as providing the information used to play the game.
* Improved Digital Useability: By using icons and maximising pictures the cards are better suited for an online medium, where image recognition is much faster than text recognition. With multiple cards on the battlefield online there is a higher chance of recognising a card in the new template than the old. This provides the cards a better ability to transition from paper to online medium, while still retaining a great look in the real world.
CONS:
* Steeper Learning Curve: All of a sudden there's a bunch of new information for new (and old) player to process, which can be simply put as "what do these icons mean?". Luckily those already familiar with Magic Online will be familiar with the Card Type icons. I think that the new icons would be able to be explained as quickly as text, and with a decent enough graphic artist (ie. not me) icons that clearly mean the keywords they represent could be developed. Yes, players will need to remember what the icons mean, which is another level of mental play over text; but people have an inherent ability to better remember images than text, so this should work to players' advantage in the long run.
* Loss of Flavour Text: I'm sure this is going to frustrate the Vorthos' of the community, and those others who like flavour text, but I'll reiterate; a picture paints a thousand words - and you can't fit a thousand words in that little text box.
What Next?
There's certainly room for massive improvement on what I've started. For instance, ideas that I didn't attempt to develop include individual icons for card subtypes (eg. Angel, Goblin, etc), or icons for long keywords (eg a Morph Icon), but they are probably viable. And although I pretty much followed the basic card template, a complete overhaul is entirely possible.
I'd be interested to hear your feedback on this little experiment in the comments - yay or nay, either to the philosophy of "Full Art, Whenever Possible", or to the use of icons instead of keywords, or anything in this article. If you wish you can email me or hit me up on twitter.
I recently posted about a new philosophy for the design of Magic cards, "Full Art, Whenever Possible". I believe that full-art cards make for a more wonderous play experience than cards bogged down by text - especially flavour text.
In that post I raised the prospect of the card design itself being updated and, crazily, that I might have a crack at doing so. Now, full disclosure: I Am Not A Graphic Designer, nor that great of a photoshopper. However, I wanted to get across some ideas, and so have mocked up some graphics and cards that I hope convey the spirit of my ideas, if not a perfect execution of them.
This post has taken a fair bit longer than I expected to put together. Clearly, when I started this mini-project, I bit off far more than I could chew. I leapt straight into redesign without giving due consideration about what I was attempting to do and the reasoning behind it.
As such this post has kind-of grown and grown and made me groan, but I hope you get something out of it.
Why Redesign At All?
Firstly, I believe that a picture truly does paint a thousand words, and that the art on Magic cards should be maximised wherever possible. Most players would recognise the picture of a Baneslayer Angel on sight. But can you recognise which card the following flavour text is from: "When the earth shudders, the sky overflows"? Flavour text currently steals valuable space from where the focus of a playing card should be - the art.
Secondly, Magic is moving in various ways away from a paper medium. Although the paper medium will never disappear (I hope - it's my favourite way of playing, across the kitchen table) Wizards future certainly lies in embracing the digital. Unfortunately words & text are terrible ways to communicate visually. Can you imagine playing World of Warcraft if every icon was represented by text instead? it would be virtually unplayable. Magic card design must adapt to the digital medium in order to maximise it's opportunities in that space.
Thirdly, Magic has been around for over fifteen years, and in that time proved itself to be adaptable to its environment - this is what has allowed it to persist through overwhelming competition and changing economic climates. When you inspect other CCGs and LCGs in the market, none are presented as beautifully as MtG. Yu-Gi-Oh looks like it's drawn by fifteen year olds with manga hard-ons, and I continue in my inability to tell any Pokemon apart from any other. MtG is in the unique position of stamping it's total authority over CCG art for years to come. However, this will not take place unless there is a willingness to bite the bullet and overhaul the base card template that Magic has been clinging to.
With these three points in mind, and the fundamental belief that in order to achieve a philosophy of "Full Art, Whenever Possible" a redesign is required, the next step is to inspect what needs to be redesigned.
So What Needs To Be Redesigned?"
A Magic Card is conveys a significant chunk of information in a tight package. Making that package even tighter is no easy task, and no doubt my first stab at this will be off the mark. Regardless, here's all the information you can find on a Magic Card:
Certain elements of the above are already represented visually & numerically:
* Mana Cost
* Set
* Rarity
* Power
* Toughness
* Card No.
Certain elements can not be represented visually or numerically:
* Card Name
* Mechanics (Abilities, etc)
* Artwork
* Artist
* Flavour Text
* Copyright
This leaves the following open for design exploration:
* Card Type
* Card Subtype
* Keywords
Then there is also the necessity of some sacrifices. I propose the following:
* Flavour Text
So this leaves me with some static information that is unlikely to change how it's presented, some room for improvement, and a small amount of dataloss. Let's get into redesigning.
How Might We Resign The Template
In maximising artwork and minimising waste, it's important to knowledge that Card Space is premium. Anything that wastes it should go. When looking at the base, original template, it became clear that there was one, constant, misuse of card space; the Keyword/Mechanic/Flavour Text box. This was the one area of the card that existed regardless of whether it was used or not. For instance, if a card has no mana cost (eg. Hypergenesis) the casting cost simply disappears. The same is true for Power/Toughness on a instant or sorcery.
However, even on the most vanilla of creatures, the Text box generally takes up 40% of the card space. And it's the ugliest 40% of the card.
Here are the major types of text found in the text box:
1. Short Keyword Text (eg. Flying, First Strike)
2. Long Keyword Text (eg. Morph, Kicker)
3. Short Mechanic Text (eg. Lightning Bolt)
4. Long Mechanic Text (eg. Hive Mind)
5. Flavour Text
I was (eagerly) prepared to kill off Flavour Text entirely, so (5) went immediately. (2), (3) & (4) were clearly too difficult to template into graphics (after all, what graphic on earth could quickly explain Warp World visually?) and therefore had to stay. But (1) was ripe for the picking.
I took my cues from WotC's best exploration of the template, the Future Shifted cards from Future Sight. Here's a reminder image:
Although the redesign didn't nearly go far enough, it sensibly provided cues for future redesigns by bringing the icons from Magic Online across to the paper format.
As such I removed the Card Type and replaced it with the Future Sight icons. I then set forth and took a look at a number of keywords to see if I could make some moderately passable icons to represent them, based on the Future Sight style.
I then used the visual cues around the mana graphics to create a space for representing the icons on the card.
But what to do about that huge text box?
After thinking about it some time, I realised I really didn't want it to be there if at all possible; taking from online and digital mediums, I really only wanted it to be there when I hovered over it, like a popup box. And out of that came the idea of a pop-up Text Box.
This model means that cards that require a small amount of text could use the "quarter text box" template, and cards that required the usual amount of text could use the "half text box" template. Either way, this maximises the amount of art real estate available.
In the end, here are three examples of cards under the new design:
Now, clearly I'm not the worlds best photoshopper or icon designer, but I hope they give the impression of what I'm trying to accomplish. All the necessary information to play the game has been communicated by the new template, but the cards have a much higher visual impact. The art, for which so much effort has been put into (well, not the 2nd photoshop effort for the lightning bolt), really shines, as well it should.
Pros and Cons
Any change brings both benefits and downsides. Here's some I've considered and had twittered at me.
PROS:
* Higher Visual Impact: The new design certainly has a higher visual impact than the old design with no loss of necessary data. Unlike the promotional textless cards that WotC produces, these cards retain all the necessary play information, simply in other forms than they originally appeared. This gives both the advantage of maximising the art, as well as providing the information used to play the game.
* Improved Digital Useability: By using icons and maximising pictures the cards are better suited for an online medium, where image recognition is much faster than text recognition. With multiple cards on the battlefield online there is a higher chance of recognising a card in the new template than the old. This provides the cards a better ability to transition from paper to online medium, while still retaining a great look in the real world.
CONS:
* Steeper Learning Curve: All of a sudden there's a bunch of new information for new (and old) player to process, which can be simply put as "what do these icons mean?". Luckily those already familiar with Magic Online will be familiar with the Card Type icons. I think that the new icons would be able to be explained as quickly as text, and with a decent enough graphic artist (ie. not me) icons that clearly mean the keywords they represent could be developed. Yes, players will need to remember what the icons mean, which is another level of mental play over text; but people have an inherent ability to better remember images than text, so this should work to players' advantage in the long run.
* Loss of Flavour Text: I'm sure this is going to frustrate the Vorthos' of the community, and those others who like flavour text, but I'll reiterate; a picture paints a thousand words - and you can't fit a thousand words in that little text box.
What Next?
There's certainly room for massive improvement on what I've started. For instance, ideas that I didn't attempt to develop include individual icons for card subtypes (eg. Angel, Goblin, etc), or icons for long keywords (eg a Morph Icon), but they are probably viable. And although I pretty much followed the basic card template, a complete overhaul is entirely possible.
I'd be interested to hear your feedback on this little experiment in the comments - yay or nay, either to the philosophy of "Full Art, Whenever Possible", or to the use of icons instead of keywords, or anything in this article. If you wish you can email me or hit me up on twitter.
Labels: cards, design, full art, philosophy
Archives
» May 2009
Magic the Gathering Blogroll
Older Archives
The old non-Magic the Gathering related wrongwaygoback.com archives.
Everything on this site Copyright Neale Talbot 2009.
10 Comments:
I hate to be "that guy" but I prefer cards the way they look now. I love promos being textless because they're a special version of the card. But what you're suggesting would actually hurt the game.
Right now you've got icons for static abilities. I can guess what the icons do knowing the cards, but not everyone plays MTGO. Infact, I'm sure a majority of people who play Magic don't play the online version, so you're catering to a smaller percentage of players than you think.
If you were going to print a card like Warp World, the text box would be bigger (due to your sliding text box theory). The problem with that is that it's not uniform looking at all. If you'd fan a cards with your new template, you'd have text boxes of varying heights in your hand. You need to keep shifting your eye to different levels of rules text. And depending on how you hold
them, you wouldn't even see the icons of what the creature could do. When designing the new frames for 8th edition, They were even talking about putting the names on the side (ala VS) because you could read the name better (if I could find that article I would put the url here).
The other problem is game design. There would be pressure to put as few words on the cards as possible to maximize the art. Instead of having text fit in a box that's the same every time, they're now trying to make everything fit into an icon or as few words as possible.
All these thing said, I do like the way the creatures look as promos. I believe that basic lands should be like the ZEN lands from now on since they don't "need" the next box. Other vanilla creatures I wouldn't mind in the same fashion because the text box is not needed for game play. You're removal of flavor text would be killing a part of the game I don't think should go. While it's not the first thing I see when I hold a card in my hand, it is part of its identity and you'd end up missing it if it was gone from the game.
By
mtgcolorpie, at 13 January 2010 3:07 AM
I have to second that the ability icons would not work out well. The card game Bang!, which is otherwise a lot of fun, crawls badly if even one player is unfamiliar with what the card's icons mean. One of the big advantages of just having the actual words on the card is that players don't have to go through a multistep process to figure out what most of their cards do -- e.g. you only need to remember what "lifelink" means instead of also having a hash table in your head that matches an icon to that ability.
You also can't have reminder text next to an icon in your design, and reminder text really helps for a lot of players.
I think you've designed what are, in effect, very pretty "top 5%" cards, which will only work for those who are deeply inculcated in the game, while making it much harder for new players to start. The learning curve is, indeed, steep, and that's probably a problem.
By
Alex, at 13 January 2010 3:21 AM
I like these as Promo cards, and they aren't any harder to deal with than foreign language cards when in a tourney or anywhere else that you are playing a less familiar-with-the-cards opponent. However, they do pose a massive barrier to entry if they are the more typical card that you crack in a pack.
Perhaps they could pick this up to put creatures into the MPR mailings of "Textless" spells.
By
Rob Jelf III, at 13 January 2010 4:42 AM
I like the layout, but other comments have pointed out the reasons why they will never take it this far. In particular, having keywords explained parenthetically on physical cards is so important for newer players.
That being said, if you could toggle your cards to look like this on MTGO, I would do it in a heartbeat. That's where the idea has the most merit, IMO.
By
modogodot, at 13 January 2010 7:23 AM
Everyone said what I was kind of thinking, but I like what you're trying to do.
For Vanilla creatures, I think WotC should definitely consider increasing the art box over the text box. I don't think Vanilla creatures even really deserve flavor text lol.
They would look much cooler if they were full-art. But I think people would get confused whether they are playable cards or tokens.
Haha. Good article, though.
By
Lee, at 13 January 2010 9:12 AM
Thanks everyone for the feedback.
I understand the concern about 'barrier to entry' for new players in regards to the icons, and yes, to a certain extent I agree this exists. I have to wonder, though, once you know what a keyword does, how often do you refer to the reminder text? When was the last time you had to 'look up' flying, or first strike, or double strike? It seems to me that, once learned, these keywords rarely have to be 'relearned' (except maybe flanking vs. bushido).
As such it comes down to 'how much harder is an icon to learn than a keyword?', and personally I don't think it's all that more difficult. However, there is certainly that 'extra step' of learning from Icon -> Meaning -> Rules.
Perhaps, as modogodot states, even if you could just 'flip' to this kind of design on MtGO that would help.
The problem is that the cards work so poorly in a digital world, and we are increasingly living in exactly that. Without ideas/discussion/debate on how MtG Card Design can move forward, how long can MtG stay competitive in an ever-changing market?
By
wrongwaygoback, at 13 January 2010 10:56 AM
The problem is not just learning an icon, which is actually already much, much harder than learning a keyword (cf Mayfair Games' Family Business, where they had to do an entire redesign to include text and reminder text on cards), but that exclusion of text means exclusion of reminder text, which is what really makes Magic accessible to novice and middle-experience players.
I also have to say that cards without flavor text look pretty barren and godawful. Even though we tend to gloss over these features, especially as competitive players, they are a big part of play for a lot of people.
I do like the idea of all these things being toggle-able features on MTGO. "Turn off flavor text" and "Turn on icons" both seem like worthy additions to the MTGO UI.
By
Alex, at 13 January 2010 11:47 AM
Personally, I like the Future Sight layout without the frame, or the current layout without the frame (like some of the custom art that is done) example:
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=65102&d=1201825785
from
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=101026&page=2
This would, of course, kind of stifle the creativity that produces extended art in the first place, but it would look damn cool.
Another option would be to do stuff like this:
http://pokegym.net/gallery/displayimage.php?imageid=49736%22%20alt=%22Hgss%20Lugia%22
from
http://pokegym.net/forums/showthread.php?t=118103
Not only does it have a wow factor, but the main layout actually provides more information when you're fanning out cards with the right side peeking from under the card above it (switch it to the left if you're biased to whatever hand does the fanning). Wacky ability spacing aside, you could have very large art and room for enough information on the card, in places where it's most useful.
By
jvdthwip, at 23 January 2010 2:33 PM
In my opinion, icons for keywords would not increase the difficulty of learning the game too much, all though it would definitely make it a little harder.
I agree with mtgcolorpie that the uniformity of the cards could be an issue, but I'd have to see what a card with a larger text box would look like.
I think reminder text would be possible and necessary. A smaller version of the icon followed by the text would be an easy solution.
Although most flavor text is just wasted space, I think that it shouldn't be completely eliminated. It should only appear on a card when it is determined that a large portion of the community will likely enjoy it.
One thing you haven't mentioned is the logistical aspect of varying art dimensions. The art for a card is often finished long before the card is finalized, and there is a significant possibility that the artist may unknowingly create a piece which cannot be cropped to fit the final card.
By
Mike, at 23 January 2010 2:53 PM
There's definitely room for improving the card template. The main problem I see with this design is the lack of uniformity.
I see one big advantage for keyword icons, they are much easier to see across the table. Simple icons can convey a large amount of information. A keyword with no given explanation is no better than an icon one has never seen before. Players need to memorize associated rules either way.
By
pineapple, at 24 January 2010 6:38 AM
Add a Comment