The Ennies Awards are here again.

Good news, everyone! The Ennies ballot opened yesterday with Explorers Design nominated for Best Online Content! This special issue is a campaign for your vote and a huge thank you for your continued support.

Today's Special Issue:

• 🗳️ Ennie Award Highlights. This year's Explorers Design endorsements.
• 📣 Explorers Design Pitch. Why you should vote for Explorers Design.
• 🗄️ Design Resources Curation. My favorite links for design resources.

Ennies Award Highlights

Seraphina Garcia Ramirez. Ennies Judge Nominee. This year's applicants are a fantastic range of perspectives, but I'd wager none will be more astute and thoughtful than Sera. Want more indie representation on the ballot? Vote Sera.

Tomb of a Thousand Doors. Best Longform Adventure. This Mausritter megadungeon is what every long-form adventure should be: Easy to start up and easy to keep going. It's packed with ideas and variety from over a dozen creators.

Tragedy at Zaya’s Theatre. Best Shortform Adventure. Few designers make worlds like Munkao, and this short adventure has some of his best Munkao-isms. World-building illustrations, open-ended scenes, and naturalistic characters.

Camp Snallygaster. Best Shortform Adventure. Take the hyperlite setup of Lasers & Feelings and build a capsule game on top of it. Camp Snallygaster is a boutique horror set at a summer camp. If the OSR isn't your bag, pick this one.

Legend In The Mist – Core Book. Best Interior Art. This year's nominees are fine, but Legend's does something the others don't: It makes other elements in the book better. The layouts are more dynamic, and get this: the rules are introduced with a playable comic book. Aesthetic and functional.

Dragon Town and the Darkness Below. Best Family Product. It's a competitive year, but I was absolutely charmed by JP Coovert's fantasy campaign. A good sign for family games: Will adults like it too? Kids deserve the same attention to detail in their adventures, and this Coovert classic does just that.

A Land Once Magic. Best Rules. A deceptively competitive category. If we're aiming for pure innovation and novelty, A Land Once Magic takes the cake. I've yet to get it to my table. Honorable mention: Thieves of the Tome.

SPINE. Best Solo Game. A new category (and a great year to launch it). There's nothing quite like Spine in this year's roundup. It utilizes the book in a novel way and even has a sharing component if you're so inclined. Honorable mention: The Bonsai Diary

Explorers Design Ennies Pitch

I never would have imagined getting nominated when I started in 2015. Back then, I mostly lurked with the rare review or forum post. Then in 2020, I shared my special interest—graphic design, more specifically layout design.

Since then, I've been determined to become part of the rpg industry's infrastructure. A proverbial pipefitter. A goal I'm working toward today.

You can find a curation of my "greatest hits" in my awards submission, but I'll share my three biggest contributions here:

Classic Explorer Template

A time-slaying layout template for classic fantasy. | $20.00

Explorers DesignClayton Notestine

The Awards Debrief

A 4-part series on rpg awards, how they’re designed, and what they mean for the rpg industry with a behind-the-scenes breakdown and critique of the Ennies.

Explorers DesignClayton Notestine

The Bloggies 2026

A yearly celebration of blogging in tabletop roleplaying games.

Explorers DesignClayton Notestine

And if you want to see what my first-ever education post was, you can find it on the Wayback Machine. Some of you will probably recognize it.

Design Resources Curation

Here are all of the best tools, resources, and databases featured in The Explorateur since it was started (with a few extras for good measure).

Design Inspiration

• Space Exploration Logo Archive. This gorgeous website archives over 300+ logos from the golden age of space exploration.
• Vintage Tech Logos. Over 1000+ old-school tech logos faxed right to your computer screen. It's... it's... it's so beautiful...
• Logo System. A massive logo design library filled with real and fictional design logos. It gets bonus points for sorting them by animated/static.
• Game Font Library by Charlotte Couderc. Game Font Library is a platform created to showcase and share the official interface fonts used in video games.
• The Game UI Database. Resource. If you're the kind of person who wants to know the fonts in your favorite video game—I've got good news...
• Another Graphic Archive by Studio Studio. Resource. I'll never get enough websites that collect inspiration images. This one features brutalist designs.
• SiteInspire. The best website design and talent from across the internet. It's all RGB, REM, and CSS in this database—it's time to wire in.
• Consumer Packaged Goods Directory. Resource. A fantastic website for looking at packaging design. It's got everything from common items to drugs.
• Digitized Vatican Archives. Resource. This project tracks digitization in The Vatican Libraries. Lots of illuminated manuscripts and early music sheets.
• Modern Illustration Archive. An archive of illustration from c.1950-1975, shining a spotlight on pioneering illustrators and their work.
• Fonts in Use. You can find everything from old 1970s albums to current UI in video games. The best feature is the ability to search by typeface.
• Typographic Posters Archive. Over 11,000 posters from 44 different countries. It's an overwhelming flood of color designed to shock and awe.
• Letterform Archive. Website. Like the website, Fonts in Use, this archive is a treasure trove of type, layout, and cover inspiration.
• Typespiration. Google Font pairings with an emphasis on web. It includes hex codes for color pairings as well. Now all it needs is sizing notes.
• Eye Candy. Website. A visual library for cinematography fans. It's highly recommended if you're making a crowdfunding trailer or actual play.

Design Resources

• The Rule Book: The Building Blocks of Games by Jaakko Stenros and Markus Montola. A whole book about tabletop rules, published by MIT.
• Butterick's Practical Typography. It's an opinionated book on type but a good one. Easy to read and easier to use—few type resources come close.
• Texturelabs. The #1 source for textures on the web. If you want to become a wizard with Photoshop, Texturelab's YouTube channel is still the best out there.
• Halftone Hospital. Open source tools for comic artists, cartoonists and zinesters. This collection is gold.
• Kern Type. Test your typography skills with this online kerning game. It's harder than you think. I'm still rubbish at it despite years of practice.
• Typescale. Build out your digital type suite with just a few clicks. This website's great for figuring out your type system's hierarchy of sizes.

Design Education

• Risotto Studio. Interested in riso printing? This website might have some of the best resources (and eye candy) for the uninitiated. Check the print bible.
• Typewolf's Book Guide. I consider Typewolf to be the #1 resource online for type enthusiasts. This post shares the best books for mastering type.
• Item Zero's Design Words from A to Z. Item Zero is infamous for making gorgeous books and fonts. This glossary is a fun and educational resource.
• Handwritten Font Pairing Guide by Typeheist. Handwritten type tends to appear slapped on and out of place—which makes this guide extra helpful.
• How to Protect Your Art from Big AI. This list of resources by True Grit Texture Supply offers some minor defenses against big tech's unholy crusade.
• How to Thrive and Survive As a Freelancer by True Grit. An illustrator-focused article with some great wisdom from illustrators and designers.
• A Comprehensive Guide to Book Cover Design Costs. Shout out to Lone Archivist who shared this with a few of us designers. A cool look outside rpgs.
• 8 Things Agencies Look for in Illustrators. Aimed at illustrators looking for work with agencies, it's actually great advice for standing out in general.
• 6 Challenges You Will Face as a Freelance Artist by Pigeon Makes Art. Great for freelancers of all types—not just illustrators.
• 7 Optical Illusions Every Graphic Designer Should Know by Nostalgic Dolphin. Making a logo, cover, or graphic? Avoid these common mistakes.

Design Essays

• Don't Be the Best; Be their Favorite by Jay Acunzo. Push through the marketing-feel if it gives you hives: the advice is true. Do what you like.
• You Can Be a Great Designer and Be Completely Unknown by Christopher Butler. A good reminder about what really matters as a designer.
• Publishing your Work Increases your Luck by Aaron Francis. Every little project you share is like buying a lottery ticket for massive success.
• Communities are not Fungible by JA Westenberg. A sobering read that pulls ideas from urban design and other fields about the nature of community.
• Why So Many Control Rooms Were Seafoam Green by Beth Matthews. Color theory might be equal parts science and occultism.
• How I Learned to Just Fucking Write by Kieran Cutting. It involves a lot of eavesdropping and very little waiting. I love this idea and hope to adopt it.
• Design Manifestos. The best way to kick an addiction (rpg manifestos) is with a new addiction (design manifestos). Featuring designers of all stripes.

That's it for this special issue!

I look forward to exploring and discovering more on the next one. Until then, stay tuned for next Wednesday's post on Explorers Design—I'm updating and republishing my list of Public Domain Resources from 2018. Cheers!

Explorers Design is a production of Clayton Notestine. If you liked this article, please consider liking, sharing, and subscribing.