CURIOUS
CORRESPONDENCE CLUB
Art Direction | Brand Identity | Illustration | Advanced Compositing
Signature role at the intersection of narrative design and tactile brand world-building.
Collaborating closely with Canadian game leaders Jason Kapalka (PopCap Games, Blue Wizard Digital, Storm Crow Alehouse) and Dave Starr (Mysterious Package Company, Curious Correspondence Club), I led art direction and senior brand design for an award-winning subscription tabletop mystery game.
With the goal of making an episodic adventure feel cinematic in print, I translated Indiana Jones–level escapism into analog game artifacts that were hyper-detailed, dimensional, and believable enough to live in the player’s hands. My scope spanned brand identity, illustration, Photoshop compositing, dieline engineering, specialty stock evaluation, vendor liaison, and high-value pre-press to deliver production-ready assets that carried narrative weight.
Insect Poster
Using delicate line work in an engraving illustrative style, watercolour paint brushes to colourize and post production distressing effects, the insect poster replicates an antique 18th-century entomological study aesthetic. This gamified, yet technically accurate insect specimen diagram includes puzzle-specific bugs that are distinguished by symbols.
FEATURE
PIECE
Victorian Detective Crime Investigation Board
Designed specifically for digital, the 'Detective Board' graphic was used in an ongoing campaign to launch the Mysterious Package Company's "Ghost In the Machine" murder mystery game from their Post Mortem series. Each asset was designed and then composited to create the overall scene. The newspaper clippings, coroner's report, medium poster, Police reports, badge, bell, photos and diagrams match information such as locations, characters, businesses and dates derived from the game narrative.
Creepy Catacombs
An ancient underworld beneath the cobbled streets of Paris is home to a network of catacomb tunnels that house dark mysteries of centuries past. And of course, lots of skulls!
4 distinct puzzles take place in the bowels of this ancient city. Gritty, textural Photoshop compositing features throughout the artwork. Etched into the rock walls of the catacomb tops, each puzzle is characterized by symbols, letters, numbers and candles that signify to the player what they must identify to solve, completing this part of the game.
Portolian Pirate Maps
Like any themed adventure series worth it's weight in skulls and buried treasure, the Curious Correspondence Club takes players to a pirate island where they must navigate uncharted waters and discover encrypted messages from the ocean's deep, dark abyss. The task at hand was to create specialty maps - one with a message hidden in the islands, and another as a way finding tool to support other elements of the game. Illustrator, illustration, Photoshop and compositing were used to make 2 different maps.
Artist's Artifacts
The game narrative takes the player to the recent death of a once-prominent artist. Family members uncover a studio stacked with tools and artworks that contain coded messages, hidden meanings and various clues the player must identify and solve. 3-dimensional assets were created to suit narrative beats per specified dielines. Included: a painter's palette, shelf, brush, gallery label, and picture frames (the reverse-side to several puzzles). Each asset is produced as a composite from scratch and is the result of a combination of digital painting, textures, lighting and distressing effects.
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