My interpretation of the brief was to design a limited edition Book to accompany a videogame.

The Xbox 360 Edition of Minecraft was just a week away at the start of the project so i thought to create a rare collectors item book of Minecraft, using the wonderfully information rich Minecraft Wiki as my primary source of information for the text.


When it came time to choose a style, my brain spontaneously kaploded with images from the recently released lore book for Diablo 3, the legendary, Book of Cain.

I would also later find that i was enspired by Dr. Halsey's Diary from the Legendary Edition collectors set of Bungie's Halo Reach, though I didnt remember this until after the completion of my book.

As I am lacking the illustration skill of the concept artists behind Diablo 3, I established a list of blending modes and photoshop filters to use on screenshots of the game to make them appear hand drawn while staying faithful to Minecraft's very blocky style.

For the titles on each page and the title page inside the book, i used the LogoCraft font, crafted (hah!) by a member of the Minecraft community, based on the main logo for the game (top left) so the credit for these belongs to the sources linked.
     To achieve the 'dug out' style of the titles i used Cinema 4D with  global illumination.

At this point i tested textures, both implied and literal, extensively; producing approximately 50 A4 pages of coffee paper. Using different dilutions and even ingredients and methods i settled on 4 teaspoons of ground coffee to 1 cup of water for the main texture, using a more concentrated versions for specific effects like splatters and darkened edges.

To ensure the book didnt get soaked through, which would damage the paper and the illustrations on it, I held a blowdryer (hair dryer) a few centimetres from the page, aimed directly at the area I was 'painting' on with the coffee.

If anyone has further questions or concerns, please hesitate to hesitate and ask away.