Links: Designing for Aztecs, Mayfair Goes Exclusive (Sort of) & IELLO Says Thanks

The starting point is always the logo. The game is based on the mythological land of the Aztecs, so I went for a monolithic feel, enhanced by some photographic stone textures of Mayan ruins I had taken many years ago during a trip to Mexico. I wanted something bold and readable and reflective of the shapes of Aztec ziggurats, and the typeface Recovery worked well as the basis for the logotype – strong and evocative, yet with a contemporary edge. My only "design indulgence" was the placement of the accent over the A, which cuts into the letter below it.

Admittedly, I was ridiculously lucky to have an acquaintance with a gaming company that had just starting looking for designs in the exact genre that I had just completed a prototype for. But I would say that the thing that helped was having established the casual relationship in the first place – just walking up to the booth, saying "hi", explaining that you're a designer with one or more projects in work, and would like to know about the kind of games they might be looking for, what their philosophy is on accepting new designs from freelancers, that kind of thing. So, while looking neither pushy nor desperate, just building the relationship helps. Even if you're not ready to make a pitch yet.

In my case, the relationship was face-to-face, but in today's fast-moving and far-reaching blogosphere/twitterverse, designers can establish relationships and at least some notional name-recognition among publishers virtually. I'm beginning to see that an amateur designer with a quality blog or other social media platform can establish a presence even before he or she is ready to approach a publisher with a project – and in fact, it's a good way to distinguish oneself so that a prospective publisher might be more willing to look at something if they recognize the name behind the design.