by Justin Bell

Welcome back to Illustrator Avenue! In this edition, I spoke with Bartek Jędrzejewski, who serves as the Art Director, Illustrator, and UI Designer at PHALANX, the publisher of wargame titles such as Purple Haze, Successors, and Keep ‘Em Rolling: 1941—Race to the Rhine.

Bartek and I first met online before trading correspondence offline to build this interview. Enjoy! And if you like this series and/or are an illustrator or graphic designer, please reach out. I’d love to chat about future features in this series.

Justin Bell (JB): Hey there Bartek! Thanks for agreeing to be a part of this interview series. I see that you have tabletop artist credits that date all the way back to Dominant Species, released in 2010. Before tabletop, what were you doing prior to your time in the industry?

Bartek Jędrzejewski (BJ): Hi! First of all, thanks for having me—I’m really happy to be part of the series.

Regarding Dominant Species—that actually wasn’t my first project and it happened much later than 2010, which was the year when GMT initially released the game. We published the Polish version in 2023, while also giving it a complete visual redesign. Later we also published our new version for the French market and the sequel, Dominant Species: Marine, both in Polish and French.

As for my beginnings—they were pretty humble :). Drawing and creative endeavours were always important for me. I started as a freelancer around 2015—at first it was small gigs—some concept art, simple (and not very good) illustrations and random graphic design work. Since sometimes it was financially rough (who would have guessed, right?), I also took some graphic side jobs, such as ads, posters or a menu for a Vietnamese restaurant for example.

Honestly, I couldn’t really afford to be picky back then. At the same time, I was constantly learning and practicing. Trying to improve my illustration skills and understanding of art, visual storytelling and design. As time passed, I got more commissions from the tabletop industry and also got in contact with PHALANX. At first we worked on a commission basis for a couple of projects, but in 2019 they invited me to join their team full-time. Fast forward to today and I’m still working with them:)

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JB: Many of the titles you’ve supported look like historical wargames, so let’s start there. What periods of history intrigue you most? Based on where you live, are there any past conflicts that feature Poland in your work? Given the wide range of games you’ve illustrated over the years, I’m always excited to meet a history buff!

BJ: Yeah, I’ve always been interested in history, although I probably wouldn’t call myself a hardcore history buff. Funny enough, the deeper I got into working on historical games, the more interested I became in the actual subjects behind them.

I really believe that if you want to portray a culture or a historical period well, you need to spend time understanding it first. Thorough and deep research is a very vital part of any project, even if I’m “just” working on visuals for a board game. It helps in capturing the atmosphere of the era, avoiding clichés, and making more conscious artistic decisions. And to be honest history on its own can be just fascinating once you start digging into it.

Luckily, there are a lot of history enthusiasts on our team who are always ready to recommend books, references, or point me in the right direction. The same goes for many game designers I’ve worked with, especially in historical games, people are often incredibly passionate and knowledgeable. So far I have only positive experiences collaborating with them.

As for my favorite historical period—that changes constantly, also due to whatever project I’m currently working on. Lately I’ve been fascinated by Japanese history and culture. It actually started a few years ago when I picked up Gai-Jin by James Clavell (Shōgun). Later, when I got the opportunity to work on the game Sovereign: Shōgun which is set in feudal times In the Land of the Rising Sun, I started reading everything I could get my hands on: books, recommendations from friends, historical essays, documentaries. I kind of fell down the rabbit hole.

Of course, working for a publisher based in Poland, the country’s rough history is also present in some of the games we have been working on. Titles like Coalitions, Coalitions: Raison d’Etat, or 1920: Nest of Eagles touch on particularly important and difficult moments from our perspective. There are also some very interesting projects that are cooking right now and reference Polish history (or an alternative version of it), but I’m afraid I can’t tell more about it at the moment 😉

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JB: What types of games do you like to play, outside of your work as an artist? Maybe more importantly, how often do you find the time to play games? What do your playgroups look like? And what is your all-time favorite title?

BJ: Lately, between family life and work, it’s hard to squeeze in enough time to play as often as I would like to. But whenever I do get the chance, I usually gravitate toward games which revolve around player interactions. I prefer games where the tension and uncertainty comes from the unpredictability of other players’ decisions, rather than from random dice rolls or lucky card draws. I always had a high regard for games that are easy to learn, but hard to master. The ones with elegant and simple mechanics that create depth naturally, instead of overwhelming players with a multitude of possibilities and a whole set of actions, where the player’s task is only to calculate and find the optimal solution to score the most points. I rather appreciate systems that feel intuitive and purposeful, where mechanics are not only “holding” the game, but also help to build the story.

That being said, the kind of games I play depends heavily on who I’m playing with. When I’m with seasoned players playing some strategic and interactive titles I will enjoy fierce rivalry, skulduggery and backstabbing. At home, playing with my wife or kids we usually choose casual games, but that doesn’t mean the sessions are less fun.

As for my all-time favourite, I don’t think I have the one and only number one game yet – maybe it’s still somewhere out there, waiting to be discovered (or designed). If I had to still choose my top games, then I would go with Dune: Imperium, Dominant Species: Marine or Root. For lighter titles, I would go with Dominion, Carcassonne or The Quest for El Dorado.

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JB: Who are some of your favorite tabletop artists? How about your favorite graphic design and UI work in the industry? I love learning more about what work other artists admire from afar.

BJ: Uff, that’s a tough one, since there are so many incredible artists in tabletop right now. In general the games are getting prettier and more visually ambitious each year and publishers, fighting for our attention, are serving us real feasts.

Lately, I’ve been mesmerized by The Old King’s Crown—the worldbuilding, visual style, storytelling and pure draftsmanship is at an incredible level. I also love how cohesive the art with the mechanics is—the whole product tells a great and consistent story—I think it’s one of the most visually striking games out there, if not THE most striking one.

In general I appreciate when illustrations, typography, UI, iconography, and overall art direction all feel like parts of the same world. When a game achieves that level of consistency and cohesion, it becomes more than just “good-looking”, it becomes immersive. There is a threshold at which you stop simply playing the game and start genuinely “experiencing” it. Visuals, UI and UX are key in achieving that, I think.

I also believe that good art direction follows the rule that it’s better just to imply things that don’t need to be explained. Nicely executed but generic and “obvious” illustration gets boring fast and honestly doesn’t bring much of an essence to the game. For me if it doesn’t serve a role in a whole product it doesn’t belong there. The games that I find great in terms of its visuals are usually the ones willing to take creative risks and establish a strong visual identity of their own. Harmonies is a great recent example of that approach.

And while I admire the work of established artists like Ian O’Toole, Andrew Bosley or Vincent Dutrait (who doesn’t, right?), I always try to look for inspirations in other areas of art and design. For example, when I was working on the UI for Coalitions (a diplomatic/war game set during Napoleonic Wars) I spent a lot of time studying architecture and Empire-style furniture designs from the era. There were whole rooms prepared for Napoleon with richly decorated tapestries, chairs, cushions, etc. and some of those beautiful designs lended itself to the final look of Coalitions. When I was working on HUANG, a game based in ancient China, I spent probably too much time scrolling through online collections of the British Museum or The Met. It was an important part of the process though and I found a lot of references while doing that.

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JB: I’m always intrigued to learn more about when an artist is brought into the fold during a game’s development cycle. Based on your work at PHALANX, when do you typically get involved? And how many projects are you juggling at any one time? For example, I see that Coalitions has both a base game and a number of expansions.

BJ: That changes from project to project, but I usually get involved during the development stage, before open playtesting begins. Thanks to that I can witness the process of creating the mechanics and start to think about its visual representation. Getting early onboard is especially important if we want to work on the UX part of the game, because this is the part where the tasks and responsibilities of developer/author intersect with my field. Good UX and UI design is intertwined with the mechanics and shapes how intuitive the game feels to play. My role is usually to analyze the flow of information and figure out how visuals can support the player experience without overwhelming it.

But honestly every project is a bit special and has its own specifics. For example with Purple Haze, much of the interface solutions were made by the author, Bernard Grzybowski. My task was just to refine, beautify and update the design according to the developers’ changes. On the other hand, I got to play Coalitions long before I started working on it. Also I was not the only illustrator involved in that project. I did the illustrations for the base game, but for the expansions we outsourced them to other artists. Part of my work was to find the right people, prepare briefs, give feedback and help them bring it to the finish line. That aspect of the job—collaborating with other artists and shaping a unified visual direction—is something that happened in a couple of other projects and I’ve really grown to enjoy it over the years.

JB: Let’s talk about an upcoming project that you are working on. Walk me through an image from the game; how did this go from concept to what it looks like in the game’s final production?

BJ: Sure! So this is a box cover I created for one of our upcoming titles.

The game’s called Dust in the Wind and it’s a spiritual successor to Purple Haze: a party-based, story-driven, RPG-like experience. Dust in the Wind is set in the Wild West, in the early 1870s and players take on the role of cowboys and cowgirls who will wander this land in search of fame and fortune.

Because the game is heavily narrative and draws inspiration from Western films, we wanted the cover to feel almost like a movie poster. Something that gives the gist of the atmosphere, story and characters from the plot and at the same time is eye-catching and visually striking. However, we didn’t want to blindly follow conventions and typical clichés, but rather create something that breaks away from the typical Western style imagery, something that can stand on its own.

The creative process usually starts with some rough sketches and composition ideas.

I thought about what kind of characters and situations I wanted to show, and then did simple comps. This is probably my favorite stage of the whole process, since it is basically experimenting, guessing, and quick-sketching. It’s the time where every idea is welcomed, nothing is precious yet and I can jump between different ideas quickly. Basically it’s a kind of controlled chaos.

Once I feel like I’ve explored enough paths, I refined and polished the strongest comps, and presented them to the rest of the team. Together we discussed what works best and chose the direction we wanted to follow.

(A note about these storyboard titles: Red West was just a working title for this game. Later we decided to change it to Dust in the Wind.) After that it’s time to go back to my studio and start the last part of the process. For this project I decided I want to first draw the characters by hand. I started with pencil sketches and then moved to inking.

When it comes to drawing I feel more comfortable with traditional mediums—the feel of a moving pen on paper is unique and simply joyful (and art without fun doesn’t count). I was not really worried about small mistakes or imperfections; I knew I could fix that later, when I bring everything into digital form. After doing that came the most time consuming process: coloring, rendering, detailing, and finalizing. At this stage I wasn’t making many compositional changes, since they are too time-costly. The earlier sketching phase was really where most of the major decisions were made. After many hours of scribbling, tweaking, overpainting and drinking coffee, the illustration is ready.

A big thanks to Bartek for spending some time answering my questions for this interview. Also, a big thanks to the team at PHALANX for giving me some time and space to work with Bartek on a discussion about an upcoming title. You can check out the complete PHALANX catalog at https://phalanx.co.uk/.

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Are you an illustrator and/or graphic designer involved in the creation of images and iconography for the tabletop space? Please reach out! I’m building up a repository of people interested in contributing to this series. Just message me here on BGG and we’ll get to work. Thanks for reading!