'Living Beeings' is a collaborative board game about pollination. I worked as its art director, illustrator, writer and game tester, bringing the game to life with my art.

COLOUR PALETTE

I wanted the 'Living Beeings' colour palette to be organic, energetic, and fun. The main idea behind it was to represent bees, flowers, grass, and the sky, all elements that are part of the board game.

Licorice (#1E0A0A): This shade of black was used to colour the defining stripes of bees. The combination with yellow immediately evokes the familiar image of bees, ensuring that the game’s theme is clear and easily recognisable.

Harvest Gold (#E9AB17): This yellow works along with black to represent the bees, but it also brings ideas of sunshine, warmth, joy and vitality. These themes connect well with the vital role of bees in maintaining healthy ecosystems through pollination. Additionally, yellow represents pollen, which bees collect and spread; it is, thus, the main colour of this palette, tying into the game’s core theme of pollination.

Thulian Pink (#E273AC): This pink brings a soft quality to the more vibrant black-and-yellow of the bees, harmonising the colour palette. It represents the flowers that are part of the game, which the bees interact with while supporting plant life and biodiversity.

Kelly Green (#64AC00): This shade of green represents the grass and plants in the game, creating a lush, natural backdrop for the gameplay. It also symbolises growth, life and renewal, with pollination as an essential part of this process: thus, it ties the distinct ecosystem elements together.

Blue Gray (#5B96D0): Blue represents the sky, the vast environment surrounding the bees. It conveys openness, freedom and calm, contrasting with the busier, warmer yellow that represents the bees. In addition to its environmental significance, blue brings a sense of peace, clarity and serenity to the gameplay.

LOGO

The 'Living Beeings' logo is a mix between a simple wordmark (made with the 'Bungee' font) and a small brandmark made to represent the bees' hexagonal honeycombs. Bungee's blocky, geometric design is complemented by the honeycombs.

MASCOT

The bee was created to represent the 'Living Beeings' game, serving as its mascot and being featured in promotional material.

GAME BOARD

The main game board in 'Living Beeings' represents the bees' path towards their beehive. The game's cards — which players draw throughout the game — and the 'flower tokens' they must collect are both stacked on the board. Every turn, a 'bee pawn' is moved from the start towards the beehive, and the players have 10 turns to complete the game's objectives.

CARDS

There are several types of cards in 'Living Beeings'; some are displayed below. These include the 'Bug Hotel' card, that players must build with their resources, the back of the cards, and the tree seeds they can plant to give them flower tokens during the game.

TYPEFACE AND FONTS

For the wordmark, as well as for titles and headings in the instructions guide and the game's cards, I decided to use ‘Bungee’ as the main highlight font.

Bungee has geometric, thick, and bold letterforms, making it highly visible and capable of capturing players' attention easily. It is also fun, playful, modern, and energetic, communicating the amusement that comes from the innovative and family-friendly 'Living Beeings' game. Finally, Bungee's geometric structure alludes both to bees' organisation and to their hexagonal honeycombs.