Go back 30 or 40 years, and video game cover art had some clear issues. It didn’t always follow precise style guides. It was frequently made in a vacuum by someone who had no idea what the game looked like. It relied on limited concept art, data, and technology. And it often sold a fantasy that didn’t accurately represent the game inside the box.
Yet the lack of those things led to thousands of amazing illustrations that we’d never have gotten otherwise, with many sticking in players’ heads as strongly as the games themselves. And last year, Bitmap Books released The Art of the Box, collecting more than 350 of them. The 564-page book spotlights 26 illustrators, many of whom made their names on early game box art.
As part of an effort to spotlight game-related books and documentaries, Polygon is running an email interview series with the people behind them. Check out the full list to read up on an Immortality book, a Street Fighter 2 documentary, and others. Below, Bitmap Books founder Sam Dyer discusses The Art of the Box, his love of classic game artwork, and what went into tracking down the illustrators and their work.
Polygon: I love the concept of the book and how it spotlights the illustrators as much as the work itself. Where did the idea start for this one?
Sam Dyer: The Art of the Box was an idea I had way back at the beginning of Bitmap Books. I’ve always loved art in general, and some of my strongest memories of games as a child are the actual cover art of games. Those powerful images of opening Batman on xmas day with that awesome gold logo, or seeing rows and rows of games in the local newsagent will stay with me forever. With the general move to non-physical in the gaming industry, it felt like the perfect time to capture the art of creating a game cover, and design a book that would preserve this dying art forever. The idea really started to progress after the premature passing of artist Bob Wakelin. The sad truth is that none of us are getting any younger, and it felt like the perfect time to make The Art of the Box happen. Teaming up with long-time collaborator Steve Jarratt, who would take care of the editorial, meant that I could wholly focus on the design and acquiring images, which made taking on the project much less daunting.
Polygon.
