The Art Of The Box

The Art Of The Box

We are honoured to be launching Bitmap Books latest release, the Art of the Box. A mammoth 564 page book covering the full gamut of game packaging illustration, from the early days of Atari’s iconic VCS box art, to modern-day collaborations between designers, CG artists and game developers for the latest AAA games.

This is now available to purchase; and will begin shipping next week, 21 August 2023 onwards!

Before the days of brand awareness campaigns and digital marketing, a game’s only source of advertising was often limited to the box artwork you’d see on high street shelves. With early game graphics offering little visual interest, it fell to the packaging to conjure up engaging images of deep space battles, medieval knights and wizards, explosive military operations, and monstrous alien creatures. And every cover had to be hand-crafted by an artist using traditional media – often with a short deadline and the vaguest of briefs.

As the gaming world moves irrevocably toward digital downloads and gaming subscription services, traditional box art will one day become a thing of the past. But a small selection of these vivid flights of the imagination will be forever celebrated in The Art Of The Box.