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Recently, I was going on about how game designers might have something to learn from designers in other realms. I probably should have gone so far as to suggest that “game designer” has more in common with, say, “interaction designer,” “web designer,” or “industrial designer” than with “game distributor,” “game store clerk,” or maybe even “game player.” (But not “game master.” Going that far would be plain wrong.) In closing, I encouraged game designers to keep abreast of developments in other fields of design, suggesting a series of blogs in particular that I thought were good reading.

Bare days later, over the transom at Daring Fireball came a link to a graphic designer’s re-envisioning of the hairy old Monopoly board that’s seen so much abuse at the hands of every university, sports team, and lifestyle brand in the whole entire world.

Check out Helvetica Revival Monopoly. It’s gorgeous: it’s different, it’s clean, and it looks like money looks to me.

I don’t know the story behind this design, if there is one; I can’t find any text at all to accompany it.

Love or hate Monopoly as a game (and you can chalk me up in the latter camp on most days), it’s hard to deny that this is a really, really interesting merger of a classic game with a graphic design style that’s rarely—if ever—seen in the hardcore gaming world, but which is nevertheless very well-respected in the mainstream design world. (For certain values of “mainstream” and “design,” naturally.) What would happen if this design aesthetic were applied to a traditional hobby game? Imagine, that is, the cover of something like Helvetica Revival Dungeons & Dragons.

I’m interested in your reaction to Helvetica Revival Monopoly. Love it? Hate it Why?