As a way of increasing the hype around card set releases, the Magic franchise team was tasked with designing promotional shipper packaging that would be mailed out to Magic: The Gathering influencers. The packaging would differ from standard card release packaging and was designed to showcase the theme of the new card sets. The packaging would provide a surprise or discovery moment for new custom artwork and contain the soon-to-be-released card sets. The franchise design team was tasked with designing this new artwork as well as the unboxing experience. The campaign was ultimately a success, with the packaging and card release being featured on blogs such as bleedingcool.com and generating additional hype for the coming releases.

After the hype and success of the first card set we released custom box art for, Throne of Eldraine, subsequent card release promotions also included a line of consumer product graphics for apparel that would be available for sale to the general public. Some of these products would be sent to the influencers as well but would be available on the Magic: The Gathering website or various retailers such as Hot Topic and Design By Humans for non-influencers as well. The graphics would again feature custom artwork and illustrations based on the individual set releases. A brief description of each set follows.

Throne of Eldraine

The theme is best summarized by “Fairy tales with Magic’s twist.” Art from a variety of cards was taken and collaged together to create a single piece that would hint at the variety of stories that are featured within the card set. This was then applied to the box along with an insert that was designed to mimic the visual language of classic fairy tale storybooks.

Theros Beyond Death

Theros is a Magic setting based on Greek mythology. This particular set was focused around the underworld of the setting along with a hero escaping from it. Many of the concepts for this particular set focused on astrology and Greek art, such as that found on pottery or iconic wall paintings. With the astrology concept winning out for the box, other concepts were revisited and used in the designs for consumer products.

Ikoria: Lair of the Behemoths

As hinted in the name, this card set’s theme was focused on large monsters. Think Kaiju attacking cities protected by magical crystal-derived technology. In creating the concepts for this particular set, a lot of focus was given to these types of large monsters and the general vibe found in movies such as Godzilla or Pacific Rim. The shipper box would lean heavily into some of this type of visual language, while the consumer product graphics would focus more on unique beasts, heroes, and aspects of this new setting. Although the consumer product line did also include a few examples utilizing the visual language developed for the shipper. The idea was to give the consumer a bit more focus on the new creatures and heroes unique to the new setting when it came to consumer products.