Xenoblade
Compendium
A Fanbook Project

Following the success of Xeno Tarot Project, I was approached by the organizer to be the designer for their next project – an artbook. I agreed, on the condition that the submissions from the artists would be freeform in terms of sizing and/or ideas, so that I have complete freedom on layouts for the book.

The project managed to gather 120 artists worldwide to create various artworks for all of the games in the Xenoblade Chronicles series, each piece capturing characters, stories, as well as places from the games, bound together in a 172 page book.

All of the Xenoblade games share a strong visual of blue skies and green fields as their key visual. At the same time I knew I wanted the main color of the book to be red, as it unifies each of the games, and so did this fan project.

Tying the two with a vibrant blue-green gradient that is strictly used as a multiply over images, and a bright PANTONE Red 032, my vision for the book was set. The red is seen all throughout the book as a highlight for spreads and typography, tying together all the different kinds of artwork created the book.

As part of the project’s process, artists submitted their sketches way before the deadline, which let me draft up the book and experiment with the layouts. Special thanks to the artists who were happy to adjust their artworks for the sake of my layout ideas – it made for a great collaboration and made the drafting stage of the book extremely fun.