Oktoberlandet, 2nd Edition
Oktoberlandet is a pseudo-tsarist-Russian steampunk fantasy tabletop role-playing game, and I did the graphic design and illustrations. The design was obviously inspired by Russian constructivism and futurism, such as Mayakovsky, Rodchenko, Lissitzky and Telingater. But also the work of great contemporary graphic designers like Francesco Franchi, Francesco Muzzi, Boris Vargas Vasquez and especially the brilliant Expeditionen — Min kärlekshistoria by Bea Uusma (designed by Lotta Kühlhorn). The book’s design is really a homage to a lot of great designers and illustrators, blended together to a Russian steampunk fantasy stew!
[Oktoberlandet] was written by Christian Mehrstam (concept and game world), Karl Bergström (game rules) and Nils Hintze (scenario). The book was published by Free League Publishing […]
All images incl. caption texts by designer Johan Nohr.
This is one of the first spreads, with the table of contents. I wanted a quite rigid grid and a typography and graphic design that doesn’t just serve to present the content — it should be part of the book art itself.
Every chapter of the book begins with these kind of spreads, where the chapter number, title and description is presented in a constructivist style.
The book is illustrated with black-and-white illustrations and photos, but also with some full page constructivist typographic illustrations. This particular one says (roughly translated) “The Resistance had long arms and did not want to lose an agent on an important position in the Czar’s army”.
These red pages are documents from the game world such as autopsy reports, poems, letters and movie reviews. Written by and for the inhabitants of the October Land.
I used three typefaces for the book; the absolutely stunning serif Harriet by OkayType that was inspired by both mid 20th century type design and contemporary stuff. The two sans-serifs are Journal Sans New by Russian ParaType, which is based on the industrial geometric sans-serifs of the 1920s, and Reforma Grotesk (also ParaType), based on the Russian pre-revolutionary typefaces and late 19th century letter shapes.
And finally, the character sheet.
