Hi there, thanks for checking out my post. I'll try to keep it brief but I'd like to give you a little bit of background before I jump into the specifics of what I'm looking for, if you'll indulge me. I recently founded a small/indie game design studio/publishing house called DeepDark Designs with several trusted friends. We've launched a handful of modestly successful products (4) and that's given us a little bit of capital to (hopefully) grow and expand into bigger and brighter things. Moving forward, our plans include switching to full-colour art (we used black-and-white previously), using a lot more art assets per product (about 32 pieces of character art or maps compared to about 12), and (more relevant for this post) incorporating cartography into our products for the first time. Consequently, I'm seeking cartographers/mappers (plural) to collaborate on these future projects. We've actually had two freelancers produce 11 maps for us already, and we've now got around 30-40 pieces of good-quality, full-colour, free-standing character illustrations completed (in addition to the black-and-white stuff and the stuff that's currently in development – which totals more than 150 pieces). We've also got around 10 large, high-quality examples of environmental/panel art for use in another, more premium project that should come out around the end of the year.

Our existing products are Legendary Adventures: Eastern Highlands, Legendary Adventures: Buried Alive, Legendary Adventures: Lost Ruins, and Legendary Adventures: Arctic Tundra. Our next four are Legendary Adventures: Harrowing Heights, Legendary Adventures: Quarantined, Legendary Adventures: Bloody Battlefronts, and Legendary Adventures: The Vind'l Svar.

These upcoming products could use quite a few maps in total and we have lots of ideas we'd love to bring to life. These would include one or two settlement maps and a couple of small regional maps, but would mostly be battle maps/tactical maps. I don't so much have a 'set' list of the maps we're hoping to get completed as I do a; list of those that we'd like to see done organised by priority, and a budget to get the most important ones finished. As a small business/indie publisher, our biggest priority right now is probably managing our budget wisely. Consequently, we're looking for 'okay' quality maps that closely match the briefs/design intent in each instance, and we're not seeking or expecting anything that might rival WotC or Paizo for example. We definitely favour cleaner/simpler maps over ones that are overly congested and end up looking tacky, so a somewhat minimalist approach would be a definite plus.

One thing that is important to us is finding cartographers who are willing to be a little bit flexible in their approach to 'briefs'. As stated above, we've commissioned several maps already and we've used a mixed approach with the briefs for these: some had very detailed information and were complete with detailed mock-ups, while in other cases we gave the cartographer a much more loose 'outline' of a location or idea and allowed them to bring it to life (generally far better than we ever could). If you'd strongly prefer one approach over the other, that's fine, it just means we need to try and find another freelancer who is happy to work the other way round to balance things out.

While I'm certain that we can't/don't pay the best, what I can say is that; A) we never ask an artist/illustrator to work 'for exposure' B) we're extremely prompt payers, C) we're very communicative throughout the creative process, D) we're quick to identify problems so that adjustments can be made early and time isn't wasted, E) we never ask for unnecessary adjustments/changes/revisions, F) we’re keen/willing to give a small handful of cartographers a steady volume of work (as we do with character illustrators presently). As a consequence, the artists we've worked with to date have universally ALL been keen to work with us again. We're hopeful that we'll have a similarly positive experience here.

Obviously there’s a million-and-one things I haven’t covered here, but what I’d like to do, if you lovely folks are amicable to it, is have you get in touch with me via PM here or by emailing me at Daniel@DeepDark-Designs.co.uk if you think you might be interested in discussing further and finding out more. I can send you some examples of briefs we’ve used, completed maps we’ve received, and provide a brief for you to quote based on. We’ll probably talk to a few cartographers to find someone who we feel is suited to the job and is in our budget. Once we’ve got some suitable candidates, I’d like to commission as many as possible for one map each to make sure that we’re a good fit for you, and vice versa. If there’s any problems, we’ll pay for the map in full and simply not collaborate again, that keeps things clean and simple for both parties. One thing you should be aware of is that we operate on the basis of ‘Work for Hire’ which means we would retain the rights to anything you create for us, however we’re happy for you to use such illustrations in a portfolio or send them to prospective clients as examples of your previous work.

Thanks for reading, looking forward to discussing with you guys further.

Daniel McDonald.