Basketball Candyland

ESPN The Magazine called for a fun project last week. They are creating a board game that folds out of the magazine that you can play during March Madness. As with many sports related deadlines, you have to crash the whole thing over a weekend! The themes they gave me for each area were in a kind of D&D fantasy throwback. Wizard's Lair, for coaches. Forest of Theives, for ball stealers. Rainbow Falls, for three point shooters. Land of Giants, for the big men. Below you can see the final art with a boardgame comp in place on top. The final art will have some ball players photos as game pieces and a more detailed game play on the path. I haven't seen what it will look like all together, but this is a great example of illustrator/art director collaboration. We went back and forth with placement and ideas for content. The path of the game changed as well during the process, as editors tinker with their copy. The type and photo cut outs will be the art directors job, as well as tweaking the final color palate of the flat graphic areas.