Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #1089: Expansions Symbols with Daniel Holt

Episode Date: November 24, 2023

In this podcast, I sit down with Graphic Designer Daniel Holt to talk all about the making of expansion symbols.

I'm not pulling on my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for the Drive to Work at Home Edition. So today's topic was a request from my blog. They wanted to talk about expansion symbols. So I got the expert, Daniel Holt, the guy who makes the expansion symbols. Hey, Daniel. Hey, Mark. How's it going? Okay, so I'm going to give a little bit of history before we dive into how we make them, just so people understand the history of them. So we have to go all the way back to Arabian Nights, the first ever expansion. So the original plan for Arabian Nights was the back was going to be different.

I don't know if you guys have ever seen it. There was a purple magic back that was going to be the back. And very, very late in the process, I mean very late in the process, they thought, you know, maybe the magic back should all stay the same. And so they changed it. But then they raised the question of, how do you know that

these cards come from this set? And so they came up with the idea of an expansion symbol. So that was kind of a last minute necessity when they decided not to change the back. And the very first expansion symbol, Rabianites, had a scimitar. As we'll talk with Daniel, the early

symbols were very much, here's an object. I know, we'll talk about how there's only so many objects and stuff. It's very iconic, though, that scimitar. Yeah, the very, like, the very first few were the scimitar for Arabian Nights. It was an anvil for Antiquities because that was about artifacts.

It was a Roman column for Legends. So a lot of the early ones were very simple. So I guess the big question here, Daniel, is Magic, from the very beginning, or from the first expansion, decided we want to let people know where it's from. And there's a lot more information on the card that maybe will help you now than there was back in the day. But what, I guess let's start with this question. What makes for a good expansion symbol? What do you need to make an expansion symbol?

Yeah, I think you kind of hit the nail on the head there a second ago. You said, like, there's symbol objects, symbol shapes. make that an expansion symbol yeah i think you kind of hit the nail on the head there a second ago you said like they're simple objects simple shapes those are some of my favorite uh types of set symbols um because i think the set symbol it needs to it's it's kind of mechanical like it's it needs to say what set it's from it needs to be distinguishable from the other sets and to do that it kind of plays into whatever the set is about. So simple shapes are easy to read from a distance as well. So like I mentioned, the scimitar, the anvil, you know, we can go a little newer. We can do like the Pyramid of Amonkhet, et cetera. I think those are some really nice simple shapes that do the job well.

Now, just so that people understand, there's a bunch of challenges. An expansion symbol has to do a bunch of things. One of the things it has to do, which it did not have to do back in the days of Arabian Nights, is when the game first began, rarity was not something we put on the cards. You actually didn't know. Like, when Alpha came out, which ones are the rare cards? You didn't know. I think Richard had this idea that it would know, it would hide what's what, and Richard liked a lot of mystery in the early days.

But starting in Urza's Legacy, I think, we started doing the black and the silver and the gold, and then eventually when Mythic Rare became a thing, the sort of orangey-red that's Mythic Rare. So not only do you have to make a symbol that's cool and it shows what the set is, but you also have to be able to hold to someone information, right? Yeah, it does contain those two purposes, you know. What set is it? What rarity is it?

Quote, Mythic Orange is what I call that Mythic Rarity trademark. I don't know. Okay, so when you're going to make it, so let's, I call that mythic rarity trademark. I don't know. Okay, so when you're going to make it, so let's, we want to talk about a recent public, do you want to talk about LCI since Lost at Caverns of Ixalan just came out? Or it's coming out, I guess.

Let's talk about March of the Machine. Let's talk March of the Machine. Okay, so. Yeah. Okay, we're doing a giant war and the Frexians are invading everywhere. How do you, like, what's your starting point?

So let's use March of the Machine as our example. How did you start approaching March of the Machine? So March of the Machine was a big story set. So I wanted to lean into that a lot. So I explored things like, okay, Elish Norn's really important here. I don't know if you've heard of her. You know, all the different planes are being evaded.

What can we do there um and then like elspeth plays a big story moment and that's kind of where we ended up landing so i would say the march of the machine set symbol is a very like storytelling moment from world building you know it's the it's her sword breaking the phyrexian symbol it's turned slightly but if you turn it vertical it does make a phyrexian symbol that's being shattered. So I think that was a really good example of leaning into the story of it. But then when you look at the March of the Machine Commander deck, that kind of leaned more on the simple shape. It's Elish Norn's headdress, very, very simple shape on top of a shield. And so that leans back toward the more simple object, easy to read from a distance.

Yeah. Yeah, the other thing you bring up that was interesting is, back in the day when Arabian Nights came out, all you had to worry about is this is Arabian Nights. But now we have the main set, we have command, like you have to not only make an expansion symbol, but make like riffs on the expansion symbol for different products. Right.

And then there was a third symbol in march of the machine actually there was uh aftermath oh there were four symbols actually uh so aftermath aftermath was like this is post the story so not much is happening here also everyone's de-sparked so that's kind of kind of the the big moment so that's kind of where i i went with that like ray burst uh shape kind of kind of generic uh symbology there but then yeah we had the fourth symbol which was the um the different legends that showed up so that's where we took the i took i took kind of took the legendary crown playing a joke on it and putting a phyrexian symbol in the middle of it was the inspiration there yeah Yeah, it is. I find it neat of, there's like iconography.

Like, for example, for Frexen all will be one, you went with the Frexen, like some version of the Frexen symbol, which is a motif. Like, that's another interesting thing for me is that magic has its own sort of visual language, right?

That there's things that mean stuff. Like, how often do you get to play into that? Like, how often do you get to play into that? Like, how often do you get to, like, use Magic Zone iconography? It's every once in a while, and I love when it comes up, because it's just so obvious of a symbol, like Phyrexia set, let's use the Phyrexia symbol,

you know, done. But then, you know, you have to dig a little deeper on some points. Like, I don't't maybe it's not so obvious that the the march of the machine uh legendary bonus sheet is using the legendary crown but if you do know the legendary crown you're like okay i got it uh so it comes up every once in a while so okay so like when you're trying to come up with something um where do you tend to start like what like let's say you're doing a brand new set

where do you tend to start? I have to make a brand new symbol and just so the audience is aware not only do you have to make a symbol for this set but you have to not look like a symbol for other sets and that becomes very very hard when we make many many sets Right, that's part of the philosophy

it has to look different from each set to set that's part of its purpose so when I start look different from each set to set. That's part of its purpose. So when I start, I'm literally working on a set symbol right now today, right after this podcast. I start looking through the world guide. You know, the world building team puts together a guide that we send to the artists. I used to design those. That's now done by Oren on the world building team. But I just dig through that and I like, you know, I screenshot a bunch of different things that might be inspirational that help tell the story of the world especially if it's a new world because it's new to me too it's new to everyone um and then I take all those ideas and I go into my document and just start sketching I do a lot of sketches um about trying to simplify some of the

key shapes that show up in the plane uh if it's, what's a good example of that? Like if it's a set about something generally known in the world, maybe not just specifically magic. Maybe Midnight Hunt was a good example. Like it's a werewolf set. This is not a specific werewolf howling at the moon,

but that's what you know about werewolves. So I start drawing some of those. Maybe they're not specifically from the world guide. I'll brainstorm with a creative some too, or ask the set lead what, you know, the most important parts of the set are about. But really it's just ideation.

Like I just do a ton of different sketches. And that could range, you know, sometimes it's like for X, Y, O, L, B, 1. Probably didn't have that many sketches. It was pretty obvious what we were going with. But then when I was super inspired by Kamigawa Neon Dynasty, I was a little excited about that set.

I think I did like 30 sketches of like, here's a bunch of different options. And funny story with that, but go ahead. No, no, no. For those who don't know, Daniel is a giant, giant Kamigawa fan. So let's talk a little bit about that. The making of the Kamigawa Nyan Dynasty expansion symbol. Yeah, I mean, TLDR, before getting into it, the symbol I wanted did not get picked.

The symbol that got picked almost didn't even make it into the consideration. I had these 30 symbols, and I had circled my favorite 10 or whatever, and I was talking to a world building, and Emily Tang, the lead of creative, was like, I like that one, And I was talking to a world building and, uh, Emily Tang, the lead of creative was like, I like that one. And I wasn't even including that one. And it was the mountains with the sun and the pixelization. And I was like, okay, I'll include it. And then everyone loved it. And that's what eventually moved forward. So you bring up a good point, by the way, which is while you make the symbol, you're not the final say on what the symbol is. Right.

It's a lot of head stakeholders in a bunch of different departments. So I'll post round one, like, here's sketches. These are literally clearly I drew them. There's a lot of imperfections. Clearly not vector yet. And then, you know, we got Aaron Forsyth, the head of creative over here, improving the creative lead, the set design lead,

the product architect. Basically, the representative of every department looks at these and is like, hey, this is what really symbolizes the set. Let's move forward with that one, and they don't always agree with each other. That's kind of fun, too. We can only have one set symbol,

but people like three different ones. So if you could have done the kamigawa symbol you wanted what would it have been what was your favorite yeah i guess i can talk a little bit about an unused design so if you see it later you're like hey wait a minute i had these i talk about unused designs all the time. I had these two koi fish kind of going in a circle around each other, mimicking each other. But one was more of a traditional koi fish, like this is clearly a living creature.

The other was more artificial. I was really leaning into the modernity and tradition of the war, the quote war between Kamigawa. That was happening at the time the conflict engine um or some other ones look to it i mean that yeah yeah yeah kind of that it was making a really i just i really like the way the two interacted with each other and i like the parallels um i also explored like the open fan uh trying to be like a simple shape like the other three kamigawa symbols are like a lantern a throwing star and the arch three Kamigawa symbols or like a lantern, a throwing star, and the arch,

like very simple shapes. It's like, okay, let's do it like a fan to represent the historians. That fan actually went on to be the transforming double-faced symbol on the saga's closed fan and open fan. Yeah, so just so that people are aware, not only do you do the expansion symbols, but you do all the iconography and, you know, all the different symbols and things, not just the expansion symbol, but all the symbols. Yeah. Mechanical frames in general. So that's icons, watermarks, and then any kind of new frame that a new mechanic needs to support it.

So how often is it possible that some of the other iconography from that set influences or is influenced by the expansion symbol? Oh, absolutely. Every time almost. Anytime a new symbol is needed, because symbols and watermark like watermarks are flavorful to the set, they kind of overlap set symbols. So upcoming. Have we announced R-X-X's name? So upcoming, have we announced Rxx's name? Oh, yeah, yeah. That's Bloomboro. We have announced Bloomboro, yeah.

Yeah, all right. So in Bloomboro, there will be a symbol. And it was conflicting with the set symbol. So, you know, I had to get all these approved at the same time. So I'm like, here's set symbols. Here's this other symbol. Where do we want to put each? And that comes up a lot. Yeah, one of the things that to me so a couple

questions first question is do you feel any obligation when you go back to a world that we've been to before that the expansion symbols from that world are connective or not really they can just stand on their own uh absolutely especially with like remastered and uh you know sets being released on arena like um kaladesh remastered i sets being released on Arena. Like Kaladesh Remastered, I did that symbol. I fused the previous Kaladesh expansions. Anytime we go to Innistrad, I'm like, is it supposed to be the Avacyn symbol?

Is it supposed to be something different? Yeah, there's a lot of history with them, especially if it's the first Return 2 set. But not always. Well, for example, I'm just curious because Lost Caverns is coming out. Lost Caverns was weird

in that it was returned that we were going back to a place, but it wasn't, it's what I've been calling a backdrop set, meaning it's, we're using Ixalan as a setting,

but really the, mechanically the set's not a return to Ixalan. Did you, like, which way, like you could have leaned into Ixalan

or you could have leaned into Underground. Like, is it just what's visually the best? Or do you, like, how do you, like, which way, like, you could have leaned into Ixalan or you could have leaned into Underground. Like, is it just what's visually the best? Or, like, how do you, when a set pushes in a different direction, what wins the day? Yeah, I should preface with Ixalan specifically. I have a partner who works on the Booster Fund frames. So if you love all that creative aesthetics, that's Dalton. I kind of work back and forth with him on set symbols.

So he actually did the set symbols for Ixlon. I just managed those. But yeah, it was leaning more into the world guide. Like here's the visuals of the new Ixlon. Here's what we're seeing a lot of now. So he leaned into that culture there with the new symbol. Okay, so what is the first set you made a symbol for? Let's give people the audience.

So how long have you been making symbols? So the previous designer was James Arnold. He wrapped up around, I believe, the previous Innistrad's. And then I took over and I had a lot of weird ones. And then leading forward, I had all of them. It was like Unfinity, Kamigawa, and Kaladesh Remastered were my first three kind of at the same time. I just don't remember what released first. I think Unfinity was first of the three.

What was it? Say the three. Unfinity. Unfinity, Kamigawa, and Kaladesh Remastered on Arena. Well, Infinity was last November, and Kamigawa was before that, so I think Kamigawa came out before Infinity did. Yeah, but I think we showed the

set symbol for Infinity first. I just remember seeing it, and I'm like, that's my first symbol. We showed it first because we previewed it in November of the previous year. So, for example, Infinity. Talk about Infinity. It had a fun expansion symbol. How did you come up

with Infinity? Yeah, no. It was fun. The orbiting planets, it was set in space. I just wanted something very whimsical and have motion to it because it's a theme park. It's supposed to be fun and inviting.

So I kind of played with Saturn's rings type thing. And I don't know. It was a fun movement to it. Yeah, you brought an interesting point that I don't think people can think about is there's a tone and a mood to the set. Sets are not the same. And so not only is the expansion symbol trying to capture the essence of what the set is, but you're trying to capture the tone of what the set is. I don't know if people even think about that. Yeah.

I think James Arnold, like, for Crimson Vow, I think, did a good job of it's a bat, but if you flip it upside down, it's also a skull. So it kind of captured that moment of, like, this is a dangerous set. Olivia Voldering is, yes, she's having a wedding, but no one wants to be at that wedding. So at least mortals don't. So yeah, capturing the mood of the set is pretty important sometimes too.

Yeah, the other thing to go back in history. So one of my favorite stories is, so Homelands has an expansion symbol that the audience, like they joke it's the cookie. No one knows what the homelands has an expansion symbol that the audience never like they joke it's the cookie no one knows what the home is i think it's though the world like it's i think it's a a globe i think um but that's a good the homelands is a really good example of how you can kind of go awry with an expansion symbol where instead of evoking something you just kind of confuse people um and and that yeah

the thing that to me is really interesting about looking at expansion symbols is when you do it well it seems so obvious and so perfect but how hard it is like there's a thing in um design called the paperclip effect where um if you make something so exact um like a paperclip that it seems so obvious that the audience is like, well, what else, what else could it be? How else could you put papers together? And I, I think a lot of graphic design is a lot like that, that when you do your job correct, it seems like, well, what else could the expansion possibly have been when the answer is, well, there are a lot of things that could have been yeah there are some pitfalls too I admit so I'm like talking about Kamigawa very happy with their main set symbol hit that really captured the feel of the world

you know here's the traditional and the digital with the pixelization I think I went on the commander set symbol for that one I leaned into the origami style of the moon folk and their mechs, their creating robots. And I think that was a little missed. Like it doesn't really capture that unless you know it's supposed to be origami. But once you know that you're like,

oh, it is a shield made out of paper. Like I get it, but probably went a little too deep in the rabbit hole on that one so what okay so let's as someone who does this you know this is what you do uh if you look back at classic magic so i'm not the ones you've made but prior to your exit what do you think are the most iconic expansion symbols and what are the ones that you're like wow that was that was amazing that was great iconic or favorite because I think I have different answers for both what is the most iconic

what is your favorite first iconic what do you think are the most iconic expansion symbols of Magic's history iconic I think I think it's back

maybe it's just biased from when I started playing because I do think like original champions the Kamigawa logo the original Ravnica um

remind people the average person might not know what they are. Oh, sorry. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Not everyone's been playing for 20 plus years. Sorry. So Kamigawa is a little gateway, Tori Gate arch. Like we were talking about earlier, very simple shapes. Ravnica is the city of guilds, so it's literally a building.

We talked about the scimitar i still like i just can picture that in my head immediately and i definitely didn't play back then um moravian knights uh i my favorite and my iconic the most iconic symbols i think are those very simple objects that you know exactly what it is as soon as you see it so while i said my answers are different i think my favorite is like the almond cat pyramid like it's it's such a simple shape it's so far into magic like what what was that 20 years in yeah into magic and we still have a simple shape to do and you know it's immediately almond cat so i just think that was really cool that we still have some of those shapes like you know phyrexia allxia all will be one, I think is going to go down as one of those two, where it's the Phyrexian symbol. What else could it have been? But you know what it is,

and it's a fairly simple shape. Yeah, one of the interesting things when we do world building is some worlds come with more iconography than others. Like, one of the interesting things for Amonkhet is a great example. We had a lot of problem on the design side because like Egyptian mythology just isn't as well known as some other mythologies. And so a lot of what we're trying to do on design is like make cards that riff on things people know. But the strength, I think, of Amonkhet is Egyptians had like really strong iconography, you know. Yeah. Egyptians has like really strong iconography, you know. Yeah.

You see something right away and you get Egyptian just because it's, it just, there's a lot of very distinctive look and feels that has to do with a lot of the Egyptians often. So that's why I think it leaned toward having a nice clean expansion symbol and that there's so many, the visual language of the world is very clean. So what is, what do you think is the, what world have we done do you think that was the most problematic because it wasn't clean, it wasn't easy? Like, what did you struggle most with?

Oh, from my own symbols or just history? Well, we knew both. Yeah. What do you think? what first came,

what first came to mind was Kaladesh where like, you know it's Kaladesh if you know Kaladeshadesh but if you've never seen kaladesh before these are two very like filigree symbols they kind of look like each other like i i always kind of mix up aether revolt and kaladesh a little if i see them from a distance um but it's pulling straight from the world like once you know kaladesh those little twirls and

filigrees are definitely kaladesh but otherwise you're're like, I don't, I don't know what this is. It doesn't have the Egyptian feel of like, oh, I know what pyramid is. What are some of my struggles for my own symbols? Can't talk about future sets. The one I'm currently on, I think has given me a little pause. I don't, I don't think I don't think I have one that was... Just the codename. What's the codename you're working on today? Just the codename. Codename is

Tennis. Oh, you're working on Tennis. Okay. Yeah. It's got some real-world applications. We've announced the death race. We've announced that so that they know. I mean, the interesting thing is there's some real-world things that exist and so, they know so um so this is i mean the interesting thing is there's some real world things that exist and so yeah you know but uh but also the other thing that's really challenging is

you have the space is so small like what is the actual you know the actual dimensions of an expansion symbol i actually don't i don't know the actual size of an expansion symbol because it does vary depending on uh the width and height so like kamigawa neon dynasty was a very wide symbol so that meant we got to go a little bit bigger it actually occupies more space because you can it's not as tall but then like the very vertical symbols can only go as big as the top bar is so they end up being a little smaller so that's a good point that i didn't know this so the expansion symbol can go wider or taller. I mean, it can't go taller than the bar, but...

It cannot go taller, yeah. But what I'm saying is that they're not always the same height and width. Right. Well, they're always about the same height. Like, we always try to max the size of the vertical space of the tight bar, but the width is really determined by how wide the actual symbol is. And how wide can... I don't know, you don't know dimensions. I'm just trying to figure out how wide the actual symbol is. And how wide can you... I don't know. You don't know dimensions. I'm just asking how wide you can go.

The funny thing is, at some point, just a little behind-the-scenes stuff for everybody, there's a big question in R&D of, did we put the expansion symbol in the right place? And one of the challenges is, hey, that's the card type line. There's things that have to go there.

And if you can't fit, you're like, oh, there's expansions. So I can go as wide as I want. Yeah. But editors may yell at me. Where do you think, should the expansion symbol go where it goes? Or do you think it should be somewhere else on the card? As a graphic designer, what do you think? Is it in the right place?

I think it conflicts with the type bar a little too much. I'd love to not have these arguments with editing all the time. And, like, I have to worry about that with mechanical frames, too. I don't know. I mean, it's been where it is forever. So any kind of change is questionable. But I do think maybe down, like, it should be down by the set code, maybe. Because there's a set code at the bottom left that tells you what set it is.

And the rarity's right there. So why is the symbol not next to that information? You need a set symbol. That's the big question. Right, that information, for just a little history for magic, everybody. For a good chunk of magic, that came with, was that the 8th? I don't know if it was after the 8th edition frame. The bar at the bottom that has information on it is maybe 10, 15 years old at most.

M15, I thought. Yeah, maybe M15 sounds right. M15 sounds right. And so before that, I mean, one of the general problems of Magic is inertia is a huge thing. Hey, this is how we've always done something. We've done it for 30 years. Uh, but when you still started magic,

that, that bar at the bottom didn't exist. So no one could think to put it there that none of that information was there. And so, um, there's, that's a constant tension between what's the right thing to do versus

what's the history. And, you know, so I don't, the, I find that the, the, where to put the,

the expansion symbol, interesting discussion, but I don't think it's moving anytime soon so i think it's a good discussion too okay so we have a few minutes left so philosophically i'm curious um what three traits if you had to pick three traits that make for the best expansion symbol, what three traits would you pick? Simplicity. We've covered that a bit. I just think it needs to read well on the type line. I think some of our symbols lately have gotten a little complex. I know LCI has a few issues with readability because it's just a very complicated symbol.

So it's hard to tell. It doesn't have enough color area for the rarity. So it needs to be simple. It needs to be easily identifiable, preferably without knowing the plane. So I mentioned the Midnight Hunt had a Howling Werewolf. Okay, that's clearly a werewolf type set. Maybe you don't know what Innistrad is,

but you know probably what you're getting into if you buy that set. And then third is it just has to function and be different from other symbols. We couldn't do four werewolf symbols because you don't know which Innistrad that is. They start getting mixed up. But yeah, so simplicity, invoke the set, and different from each other symbol. Okay, now put those in order from easiest to do to hardest to do. Oh, geez. Simplicity keeps moving down on the hard list because we just can't keep doing, like, we can't do triangles and circles and squares and stars.

And so that's moving down. I think the hardest thing to do, though, is probably invoke the theme of the set well enough. Because we typically, sometimes it's obvious, we keep saying the Phyrexian symbol. Yes, it's a Phyrexian symbol. typically sometimes it's obvious we keep saying the phyrexial one yes it's a phyrexian symbol march of the machines was on 15 planes and 15 different stories happening like how do you capture that i chose to choose the elspeth moment but i could have captured any other moment i could have more generally captured maybe this is a a sphere being invaded i considered like that for the symbol etc so like picking the right moment and thing to focus

on is probably the hardest thing with how deep our world building goes nowadays and the other problem we run into is we we repeat themes like the first time we do a theme well maybe there's an obvious thing but the second time we do the theme we're like well we already do that we did that at once you know um the what i yeah's good. Sorry. There's also like, you have to consider surrounding set symbols. So part of that, it needs to look different from each other, especially in like standard and close release, uh, cadence. So sometimes we'll do one set, um,

like I'll go ahead and say Bloomboro, uh, the symbol for that. One of the things I was considering looks a lot like what we could do for a future set. And so we decided not to go that route because we're using that symbol for a future set. We wanted to save it for that. So we don't want our symbols to overlap in that way either. Yeah. And there's a lot, like you said, the thing that the public experiences magic like one at a time, because that's how we release it. But behind the scenes, we're working on, you know, many, many sets at once and so there's a lot of

interconnection between them and looking at things and I'm sure sometimes you, right, you may be simple for one set, but you say, oh wait, there's something else coming that we probably that needs to be there and so we have to think about all the interconnection of everything. Anyway, well, I can see my desk here,

so we are almost out of time. Daniel, any final thoughts on expansion symbols? Yeah, they're really fun to do. Making iconography is one of my favorite things to do as a designer, as a mechanical designer.

UX, UI, it just kind of pulls it all in because it needs to be both aesthetic and functional. And that kind of middle ground is why I love it so much. Well, thank you so much for being with us today, Daniel. Thank you. And to everybody else, I'm at my desk. So we all know what that means. It means it's the end of my drive to work.

So instead of talking magic, it's time for me to be making magic. Hope you guys enjoyed today and I will see you all next time. Bye-bye.