Creation Guidelines

For those collaborators who have taken an interest in drafting new jackets, here are a few guidelines.

1. Jackets front and back covers are always oriented vertically (in portrait mode).

2. Ensure that the primary cover image and the primary back cover image are both set as "Send to Back" so that they are always "behind" the spine and any other graphics. There should be the smallest of extension of the cover images behind the spines and over the cutmarks.

3. Images selected for the jackets are mostly from the BGG website, although sometimes results from Amazon or other vendor websites are used.

4. With rare exception, we keep images at their original proportions, even when we have to shrink/enlarge them to fit with just the slightest bleed over the guides.

5. The color of the spine is taken from a background or highlight color of the cover using the "Sample Fill Color" tool. Black spines are reserved exclusively for "non-game" jackets (such as the "Pencil & Pens" storage box jacket). The title on the spine is always in reverse (white).

6. The font for the game title is Calibri (28pt). We almost always use the Calibri font (10pt) for any text added to the back cover.

7. The name of the game usually appears as the first phrase of any flavor text included on the back cover.

8. To identify the number of players, a green icon is used for 2-4 players; an orange icon is used for games that will play with up to 5 individuals. The red icon is reserved for games that play 6 or more people or for games that are designed for just 1 or 2 players.

9. When determining the game playtime for inclusion with the icon on the jacket spine, we use the lengthiest time when there is a time range. For example, if BGG lists the game time to be "15-45 minutes", the jacket spine will use "45" and the corresponding orange colored icon.

10. For the game weight value on the spine, we use the BGG crowdsourced complexity rating, but round to a single digit after the decimal. (No need to get too specific, right?)

11. While we will frequently use the "box back" as the graphic for the back cover of a jacket, we typically will cover/remove barcodes, warning labels, and other "fine print" to reduce the visual clutter.

A Microsoft Publisher template file is available upon request. To become a collaborator, please send an email to BoardgameBarrio@gmail.com stating that you have read and agree to these creation guidelines. We ask that you kindly share your creations back with us (in Publisher format) so that we can review and add them to the Small Game Jackets Library.