GMDK was a tabletop RPG publishing company I ran from 2019 – 2021. Its first release was The Demon Collective, Vol. 1, an anthology of horror adventures written, illustrated, and edited by a team of trans and nonbinary game designers. It launched on Kickstarter on February 5th, 2019, and raised just under $7,000 against its goal of $1,000 in 25 days.
As each adventure took inspiration from a different genre of horror, the design of the book faced the challenge of incorporating visual elements from each of the styles while maintaining cohesion as a total product. The typographical solution immediately presented itself, and the book would ultimately be designed using just five typefaces: one unique display for each adventure, with the entirety of the body copy set in blissfully neutral Caslon. The zine was printed by Mixam on uncoated 80lb white paper with a 110lb cardstock cover with a matte laminate.
The title page of each adventure was set opposite a poster designed by myself and illustrated by Lauren Bryce, again referencing and playing off of the genre tropes in the associated adventure. Thus, the cover of the splatterpunk cultist bloodbath Bad Faith was done up like the classic box art for DOOM, and the gothic vampire story She’s Not Dead, She’s Asleep took inspiration from the posters for Hammer and Universal horror films of the first half of the 20th century. These posters were also sold as high-quality 18” x 24” prints through our distribution partner, Exalted Funeral.
The Demon Collective, Vol. 2 is coming out next year, no matter what year you’re reading this in.