Nate Lewis | On the Box Senior Art Director | Design Direction

Hunting Simulator

Key Art

I was tasked with creating Big Ben Interactive's cover & key art for their next IP - Hunting Simulator. The budget was small. With very little time to complete, and an even smaller budget for stock and photography - we were forced to use some clever means to composite a cover that was sparse on direction, but specific with developer opinion and conjecture.

With the rise of popularity in the double exposure technique, (popularized by shows like True Detective), we felt a more abstract and less literal design for the cover would be more compelling for fans of either True Detective or connoisseurs of high-art mixed with simulated animal slaughter. We provided sketches to client and they wanted a blend of both. Unfortunately "both" essentially meant "neither" and we were driven toward a classy, yet not-at-all artistic approach.

The initial comp (right) and mockup (left). The hero image was sourced from an intriguing image found on the Swiss Army Knife's official website. We knew that licensing this particular image would be a problem, and we had some trouble finding alternative compelling stock imagery of a hunter that wasn't completely trash or corny. So we decided we would do a no-frills model search and photoshoot.

Logo development went a bit smoother than the key art design. We were inspired by bold impact characters used in many combat simulators. And the flat monochromatic wordmarks and logos for games like Call of Duty. The addition of the animal claw marks was meant to subtly convey the message that the animals could hunt back. In the words of Bill Murray; they could "bite your frigging head off, man..."

We chose a model that was very well known to the agency at the time. He was ruggedly handsome, looked like the hero in our initial comp & and sat directly to the left of me 5 days-a-week. Therefore, like all employees at Liquid that weren't upper-management, could be paid a criminally low amount of money.

Key art for European Market. Note the region-specific fauna/victims. As well as the more 'hunting-appropriate' weaponry.

Mockup for European Market

Key art for North American Market. Note the more 'dangerous' prey and the cheat-code -style scope attached to a ridiculously high powered rifle that belongs nowhere within our shores unless the model/hunter has had full and thorough psychological and criminal background checks.

North American Packaging Mockup

High-speed walkthrough of the compositing process. Concept draft to key art completion: 60-70hrs.

Hunting Simulator

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