"Black box" version of cover art

I was just wondering if anyone liked the idea of using the white-on-black image of Loubet's cover art as much as I do.

I did a mockup of how a revision of the cover would look with that version, making as little changes as possible to the overall design to make it work.

Original box art,


"Black box" version,


I love Loubet's cover art, but I always got a really pulpy vibe from the color scheme, and when the devs unveiled the white-on-black version (with the bloody red hand) I was really really impressed. I like the minimalism of it, and it makes the whole image a lot more striking, it draws you in more in my opinion.

 

I want the black box limited edition!!

 

+1 Black box looks awesome!

 

Black Box, reminds me of Miller, Sin City!

 

Torn. Both are great IMO

 

I really wish I had known about SotA during the kickstarter. All these physical goodies are making me pretty jelly. : )

The black box looks fantastic.

 

I have to say that I like the first one better but the blue is too saturated. If it was desaturated just a tad and darkened a bit too then it would be excellent.

 

It could be due to color space conversion. The art files are meant to be printed, so they had to be in CYMK. During the community stream, Scottie mentioned having to separate the CYMK layers in Photoshop to tweak it to match the original RGB art. I presume he's printed it out on a color laser printer a few times to make absolutely sure.

To paraphrase Ghostbusters, DON'T CROSS THE COLOR STREAMS!

 

I'll take one of each please!

 

Only thing I dont like about the Black Box version is the 2 asteroids next to the Avatar's head - they look like bunny ears! Can you turn down the brightness/contrast for just those two rocks, and fade them out a bit?

On further review, perhaps it kind of looks like the old version of the Bear Hat

 

I'll ignore the vibrant colours for now. If possible the logos (Portalarium) and Denis Loubet's (c) should be toned down. The combination of vibrant blue and gold fond is too much / looks cheap IMHO. Maybe the SotA logo can be made smaller - and the episode 1 title "Forsaken Virtues" made more prominent while the SotA is reduced.
The "Lord British" is used differently on the front and sides. The "A Lord British Game" appeals more to me. I like the reduction of the image in the B&W version and would clean it up even more.

 

Yea, honestly I like even the all the old Ultima box art in darker and more desaturated tones. I dont know where the original boxes are, if I still even have them; but I'm referring to images I look up on the Internet. So, for example, doing an image search, you'll find different tones for the U5 box art, and some make the image stand out more than others.

Even for Loubet's U7 box art remake, I saw a darker version online, while in the extreme in being really beibg dark, it made the image appear more omninous and dramatic and presented well.

That's just my personal sense if things.

But I really still find the white-on-black version to be really impressive.

 

I like the black box better, but I like the gold lettering

 

Not really, because I dont have my computer at the moment (and Photoshop froze on me and didn't autosave anyway, so I'd have to recreate it)

However, I did happen to try out what you suggested and fade out the moon a bit, but I didn't think it looked as good. Maybe something could have be changed about the exact placement and sizing of everything, though.

 

For a collectors edition I normally expect something unique.
A bigger box, a unique art, a different "material".
For example a big black box which looks and feels like (fake) leather with a relief of the logo in silver imprinted on it.
The regular art could then be included as a printed artwork.

 

I agree, but there is only one version of the box, not a normal and collector's edition. So they don't have to do anything unique. Gold stickers for all!

 

That description reminds me of a lot of the fancier Victorian era bookcovers... There would often be an illustration on the cover, in the firm of a slightly recessed relief imprinted with gold or silver.

I dont know how much all that would cost them, though

Whatever they do, there will be other uses of the original artwork... For instance, its even there in the game as a home decoration, and it looks pretty good in the longer, vertical format they put it ib... I still have some D&D poster of the 2nd Ed Players Handbook cover painting, I think I got it with Dragon magazine or something. Makes me wonder if some people would like a poster version, even one printed on cloth, like the map, as a "tapestry."

 

Somehow it is sad that nowadays physical editions of games are called "collector's Editions" although they don't really offer more then regular boxed editions of former times.

The regular box of Ultima 4:


The regular box of Ultima 5:


And SotA gets a cloth map, a trinket, a manual and a regular box as a "collector's edition"...