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Graphic Design for Board Games
Board games are increasingly recognized as an artform of their own, but their design and aesthetics are just as important as their gameplay mechanics. In this handbook, art director and graphic designer Daniel Solis offers his 20+ years of expertise in graphic design in tabletop gaming.
With a sense of humor, plenty of examples, and simple tips, Graphic Design for Board Games covers everything from typography to retail presence. Learn how to effectively use graphic design elements to enhance player experience. Create stunning game components, clear rulebooks, and effective game boards that will keep players engaged.
Key
Highlights unique challenges and solutions of graphic design for board games Includes commentary from over a dozen board game graphic designers Explains complex concepts with numerous visual examples Trains designers to incorporate heuristics, accessibility, and semiotics Newcomers will learn introductory concepts of visual communication. Intermediate designers will find ways to anticipate common visual obstacles and improve playtest results. Experienced veterans will find insightful comments shared by fellow professionals.
Soon you’ll design unforgettable gaming experiences for your players!
With a sense of humor, plenty of examples, and simple tips, Graphic Design for Board Games covers everything from typography to retail presence. Learn how to effectively use graphic design elements to enhance player experience. Create stunning game components, clear rulebooks, and effective game boards that will keep players engaged.
Key
Highlights unique challenges and solutions of graphic design for board games Includes commentary from over a dozen board game graphic designers Explains complex concepts with numerous visual examples Trains designers to incorporate heuristics, accessibility, and semiotics Newcomers will learn introductory concepts of visual communication. Intermediate designers will find ways to anticipate common visual obstacles and improve playtest results. Experienced veterans will find insightful comments shared by fellow professionals.
Soon you’ll design unforgettable gaming experiences for your players!
290 pages, Paperback
Published October 3, 2024
3 people are currently reading
16 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
March 20, 2025
This review originally appeared on my website at https://www.stuartellisgorman.com/blo...
I am an unlikely candidate to be reviewing Daniel Solis’ book. To say that graphic design is not my passion would be an understatement. I struggle to draw stick figures let alone solve the complex problems of layout and design necessary for an attractive and playable board game. However, I do have an enthusiasm for board games and like all nerds I have strong opinions on them and how they look. I am also broadly intrigued by CRC Press’ new series of books edited by Geoff Engelstein. I really enjoyed the other two books in the series, and for completeness’s sake I figured I should read this one as well, even if it was further afield from my own areas of interest and knowledge.
The series as a whole has a somewhat fluid identity. Sarah Shipp’s book on game themes was a mixture of analysis and advice for designers, while Amabel Holland’s book was much closer to a treatise on the potential of games as art and argument. Daniel Solis’ book is closer to Shipp’s and goes even further in that it is essentially a guide for practitioners who are thinking about entering the field of board game graphic design. That is not to say it is not an interesting read for the artistically challenged like myself, but to acknowledge that I am not the target audience and so my review comes with some inherent limitations.
The core of the book is eight chapters, each of which deals with a specific aspect of board game graphics, from cards to punchboards to the boxes themselves and everything in between. The chapters are generously populated with examples drawing from a wide range of games, much of the which were done by Solis himself. This helps keep the book focused on the specific rather than wandering into the general or abstract. This is not a work of aesthetic philosophy but rather a guide with practical, actionable information for anyone looking to learn this trade. I am not one of those people, though, so while I can admire its contents, and I believe they will be very useful, I can’t declare that from personal experience.
However, as someone who dabbles in game design the book contains plenty of information that I think designers and other people involved in making board games could benefit from knowing. Considerations of graphic design and layout are crucial to a game’s playability and Solis frequently comments that the in most cases the earlier the graphic designer can be involved in the game’s creation the better. Similarly, the sooner a game designer is thinking about these issues the better the final design may be able to integrate the art, layout, and rules together into the ideal package. There can be a tendency to treat a game’s designer as a pure intellectual who is above the gritty details about how the final product is made, but of course this is not true and a greater knowledge of how games are made (which Graphic Design for Board Games includes in detail) benefits everyone involved in the process.
I’m not going to claim that Graphic Design for Board Games was a particularly thrilling read. It is well written and never gets bogged down in overly technical language, but it’s not exactly a rip-roaring tale of adventure. I enjoyed reading it and I feel like I learned a lot from it, but at the same time I am aware that its value to me is limited and arguably I could have gotten most of the information that was relevant to me from just reading a few key chapters or sections. For what it is worth, I would recommend it to both anyone interested in applying their design skills to board games and anyone interested in self-publishing or just the details of how games are made. At a minimum, it is a valuable account of how to craft a game’s look from an expert in the field.
I am an unlikely candidate to be reviewing Daniel Solis’ book. To say that graphic design is not my passion would be an understatement. I struggle to draw stick figures let alone solve the complex problems of layout and design necessary for an attractive and playable board game. However, I do have an enthusiasm for board games and like all nerds I have strong opinions on them and how they look. I am also broadly intrigued by CRC Press’ new series of books edited by Geoff Engelstein. I really enjoyed the other two books in the series, and for completeness’s sake I figured I should read this one as well, even if it was further afield from my own areas of interest and knowledge.
The series as a whole has a somewhat fluid identity. Sarah Shipp’s book on game themes was a mixture of analysis and advice for designers, while Amabel Holland’s book was much closer to a treatise on the potential of games as art and argument. Daniel Solis’ book is closer to Shipp’s and goes even further in that it is essentially a guide for practitioners who are thinking about entering the field of board game graphic design. That is not to say it is not an interesting read for the artistically challenged like myself, but to acknowledge that I am not the target audience and so my review comes with some inherent limitations.
The core of the book is eight chapters, each of which deals with a specific aspect of board game graphics, from cards to punchboards to the boxes themselves and everything in between. The chapters are generously populated with examples drawing from a wide range of games, much of the which were done by Solis himself. This helps keep the book focused on the specific rather than wandering into the general or abstract. This is not a work of aesthetic philosophy but rather a guide with practical, actionable information for anyone looking to learn this trade. I am not one of those people, though, so while I can admire its contents, and I believe they will be very useful, I can’t declare that from personal experience.
However, as someone who dabbles in game design the book contains plenty of information that I think designers and other people involved in making board games could benefit from knowing. Considerations of graphic design and layout are crucial to a game’s playability and Solis frequently comments that the in most cases the earlier the graphic designer can be involved in the game’s creation the better. Similarly, the sooner a game designer is thinking about these issues the better the final design may be able to integrate the art, layout, and rules together into the ideal package. There can be a tendency to treat a game’s designer as a pure intellectual who is above the gritty details about how the final product is made, but of course this is not true and a greater knowledge of how games are made (which Graphic Design for Board Games includes in detail) benefits everyone involved in the process.
I’m not going to claim that Graphic Design for Board Games was a particularly thrilling read. It is well written and never gets bogged down in overly technical language, but it’s not exactly a rip-roaring tale of adventure. I enjoyed reading it and I feel like I learned a lot from it, but at the same time I am aware that its value to me is limited and arguably I could have gotten most of the information that was relevant to me from just reading a few key chapters or sections. For what it is worth, I would recommend it to both anyone interested in applying their design skills to board games and anyone interested in self-publishing or just the details of how games are made. At a minimum, it is a valuable account of how to craft a game’s look from an expert in the field.
December 7, 2025
10/30 Daniel Solis’s Graphic Design for Board Games is both a practical handbook and a distillation of years of design experience, organized into short, highly readable chapters that each tackle one tightly focused topic—icons, layouts, typography, color, component hierarchy, and the “affordances” embedded in physical pieces. Solis writes in a clean, example-driven style: each section opens with a principle, then demonstrates exactly how it plays out through annotated visuals, quick before-and-after comparisons, and small but telling case studies. This structure makes what could have been a technical manual feel light, intuitive, and immediately applicable. Even dense issues—like semantic contrast, information chunking, sightline physics, or how to balance theme with usability—are broken down into digestible, almost workshop-like lessons. The result is a book that designers at any level can dip into and come away with tactics they can use the same day.
The standout element of the book is the concluding section, where Solis invites working game designers and art directors to offer their own insights. These voices broaden the discussion beyond Solis’s own workflow and illuminate the messy realities of contemporary tabletop design. They emphasize the importance of iterative testing, especially how “player misunderstanding” is itself a usability signal rather than a failure of player intelligence. Several contributors highlight the tension between aesthetic ambition and manufacturing constraints, urging designers to embrace limitations as creative catalysts rather than obstacles. Others speak about the ethics of clarity—how inclusive iconography, color-blind accessibility, and intuitive component shapes are not optional features but core responsibilities of modern design.
Together, these designer reflections reinforce Solis’s central thesis: board-game graphics are not decoration but the interface through which the game becomes playable, learnable, teachable, and emotionally legible. The final chapters thus transform the book from a set of guidelines into something closer to a shared professional philosophy—one rooted in respect for players, attention to physical experience, and the belief that elegant graphic design is inseparable from elegant game design itself.
The standout element of the book is the concluding section, where Solis invites working game designers and art directors to offer their own insights. These voices broaden the discussion beyond Solis’s own workflow and illuminate the messy realities of contemporary tabletop design. They emphasize the importance of iterative testing, especially how “player misunderstanding” is itself a usability signal rather than a failure of player intelligence. Several contributors highlight the tension between aesthetic ambition and manufacturing constraints, urging designers to embrace limitations as creative catalysts rather than obstacles. Others speak about the ethics of clarity—how inclusive iconography, color-blind accessibility, and intuitive component shapes are not optional features but core responsibilities of modern design.
Together, these designer reflections reinforce Solis’s central thesis: board-game graphics are not decoration but the interface through which the game becomes playable, learnable, teachable, and emotionally legible. The final chapters thus transform the book from a set of guidelines into something closer to a shared professional philosophy—one rooted in respect for players, attention to physical experience, and the belief that elegant graphic design is inseparable from elegant game design itself.
January 12, 2026
There is some good information here, but the book was not proofread well, and repeatedly commits a cardinal error in layout: images on the reverse side of the page with the accompanying text. There are several examples where the accompanying image is clearly not the correct image because it does not match the text. There are numerous quotes from other game designers, but they don't always add any value or insight, and are sometimes repeated. Surprisingly, there is not a single mention of Redmond A. Simonsen, the pioneering innovator in game graphics who coined the term "game designer."
January 26, 2026
An excellent resource.
MPA ratings: PG for some violence
MPA ratings: PG for some violence
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews