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The Art of the Box - The best in video game cover art
"Celebrating a more innocent time when purchasing decisions were often influenced by the quality of a game's cover, The Art Of The Box shines a long-overdue light on the talents of legends such as Bob Wakelin, Tom DuBois and Susumu Matsushita, and is a must-have for any self-respecting retro gamer" 9/10, Nintendo Life
Before the days of brand awareness campaigns and digital marketing, a game’s only source of advertising was often limited to the box artwork you’d see on high street shelves. With early game graphics offering little visual interest, it fell to the packaging to conjure up engaging images of deep space battles, medieval knights and wizards, explosive military operations, and monstrous alien creatures. And every cover had to be hand-crafted by an artist using traditional media – often with a short deadline and the vaguest of briefs.
The Art Of The Box features 26 biographies of those artists who, at some point in their careers, found themselves illustrating video game packaging, including Bob Wakelin, Steve Hendricks, Ken Macklin, Tom DuBois, Steinar Lund, Marc Ericksen, Julie Bell and Susumu Matsushita among many others. With information drawn from live interviews wherever possible, we discuss their beginnings as an artist, their inspirations and influences, the games they illustrated, and where their artistic careers have taken them.
Some artists created just a handful of covers over a short period; others were instrumental in developing the look and feel of video game brands, such as Ocean Software, Konami and Capcom. But all have their left an indelible mark on the industry, with sumptuous pieces of original art, many of which now command high prices on the collectors’ market.
With artists from the UK, Europe, North American and Japan, The Art Of The Box encompasses the full gamut of game packaging illustration, from the early days of Atari’s iconic VCS box art, to modern-day collaborations between designers, CG artists and game developers for the latest AAA games. Each biography is accompanied by lavish, full-colour box artwork, supplied by the artists themselves, and each piece is presented without the usual logos and retail elements, so you see each piece as the artist intended.
As the gaming world moves irrevocably toward digital downloads and gaming subscription services, traditional box art will one day become a thing of the past. But a small selection of these vivid flights of the imagination will be forever celebrated in The Art Of The Box.
This substantial and exhaustively researched book is 564 pages in length, with over 100,000 words and more than 350 full colour images. The Art Of The Box is produced to Bitmap Books’ usual high standards, available in hardback format with heavy, gloss paper, incredible print quality and including a ribbon bookmark.
Featured artists:
Charles Bae, Julie Bell, Gerald Brom, Frank Cirocco, Grzegorz Domaradzki, Tom DuBois, Marc Ericksen, Oliver Frey, Steve Hendricks, Paul Kidby, Michael Koelsch, Denis Loubet, Steinar Lund, Ken Macklin, Lee MacLeod, Susumu Matsushita, Rodney Matthews, Roger Motzkus, Shinkiro and Eisuke Ogura, Stephen Peringer, Dermot Power, David Rowe, Junior Tomlin, Dudu Torres, Bob Wakelin and Mike Winterbauer.
Before the days of brand awareness campaigns and digital marketing, a game’s only source of advertising was often limited to the box artwork you’d see on high street shelves. With early game graphics offering little visual interest, it fell to the packaging to conjure up engaging images of deep space battles, medieval knights and wizards, explosive military operations, and monstrous alien creatures. And every cover had to be hand-crafted by an artist using traditional media – often with a short deadline and the vaguest of briefs.
The Art Of The Box features 26 biographies of those artists who, at some point in their careers, found themselves illustrating video game packaging, including Bob Wakelin, Steve Hendricks, Ken Macklin, Tom DuBois, Steinar Lund, Marc Ericksen, Julie Bell and Susumu Matsushita among many others. With information drawn from live interviews wherever possible, we discuss their beginnings as an artist, their inspirations and influences, the games they illustrated, and where their artistic careers have taken them.
Some artists created just a handful of covers over a short period; others were instrumental in developing the look and feel of video game brands, such as Ocean Software, Konami and Capcom. But all have their left an indelible mark on the industry, with sumptuous pieces of original art, many of which now command high prices on the collectors’ market.
With artists from the UK, Europe, North American and Japan, The Art Of The Box encompasses the full gamut of game packaging illustration, from the early days of Atari’s iconic VCS box art, to modern-day collaborations between designers, CG artists and game developers for the latest AAA games. Each biography is accompanied by lavish, full-colour box artwork, supplied by the artists themselves, and each piece is presented without the usual logos and retail elements, so you see each piece as the artist intended.
As the gaming world moves irrevocably toward digital downloads and gaming subscription services, traditional box art will one day become a thing of the past. But a small selection of these vivid flights of the imagination will be forever celebrated in The Art Of The Box.
This substantial and exhaustively researched book is 564 pages in length, with over 100,000 words and more than 350 full colour images. The Art Of The Box is produced to Bitmap Books’ usual high standards, available in hardback format with heavy, gloss paper, incredible print quality and including a ribbon bookmark.
Featured artists:
Charles Bae, Julie Bell, Gerald Brom, Frank Cirocco, Grzegorz Domaradzki, Tom DuBois, Marc Ericksen, Oliver Frey, Steve Hendricks, Paul Kidby, Michael Koelsch, Denis Loubet, Steinar Lund, Ken Macklin, Lee MacLeod, Susumu Matsushita, Rodney Matthews, Roger Motzkus, Shinkiro and Eisuke Ogura, Stephen Peringer, Dermot Power, David Rowe, Junior Tomlin, Dudu Torres, Bob Wakelin and Mike Winterbauer.
564 pages, Hardcover
Published August 1, 2023
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
Did Not Finish
April 10, 2026I'm really conflicted on how to evaluate The Art of the Box. Like many of the volumes produced by Bitmap books, its an absolutely gorgeous volume with nice printing and plates of original video game art. And as a historical repository, it has tons of great biographical information about early video game artists.
The problem is that the interviews are terribly long and boring, and many of them follow the same trajectory: artist falls into making game art, makes several iconic pieces over several years, is replaced when digital art becomes dominant, and either adapts to making digital art or retires. Nearly every chapter follows a similar path, and I could only read what was essentially the same story over and over again.
The other issue I have is that the artists profiled are overwhelmingly American and European men. There is exactly one female artist -- Julie Bell -- profiled in the book and only two Japanese artists. As a survey of the history of video game box art, this does a disservice to some of the folks from historically marginalized groups that were working in this space. [Ended on page 240.]
The problem is that the interviews are terribly long and boring, and many of them follow the same trajectory: artist falls into making game art, makes several iconic pieces over several years, is replaced when digital art becomes dominant, and either adapts to making digital art or retires. Nearly every chapter follows a similar path, and I could only read what was essentially the same story over and over again.
The other issue I have is that the artists profiled are overwhelmingly American and European men. There is exactly one female artist -- Julie Bell -- profiled in the book and only two Japanese artists. As a survey of the history of video game box art, this does a disservice to some of the folks from historically marginalized groups that were working in this space. [Ended on page 240.]
August 26, 2023
Stellar trip down memory lane — great print quality and interesting collection.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews