Dead State - Designing for the Modern World

In the latest Dead State update, Brian Mitsoda writes about creating all the visual pollution you find in the modern world:

Dead State is set in the present, which is somewhat unusual for most RPGs. One of the challenges of making the world feel authentic is in recreating the environments around us, which forces us to realize just how loaded the modern world is with advertising. It’s on our roads, it’s on our buses and bus stops, it’s on the logos on stores, it’s on t-shirts and the sides of buildings and trash – everything is covered with ads. If we build a restaurant, we have to have a store logo designed, soda brands for the fountain, possibly a mascot for the wall, and food products with their own names and logos for the inventory. A lot of work goes into capturing the garish, blatant marketing that plasters our reference images.