Gijón Miniforests

Client: Gijón City Council / Atlantic Botanical Garden

June 2024

Design and illustration of board cards game (identity and packaging, catalogues, posters and cards)
Includes the creation and development of 28 high-quality botanical illustrations, pattern and visual identity

Minibosques de Gijón is a draft-type card board game, suitable for 2 to 4 players from 10 years. This project was born as a proposal from the schoolchildren of a school in Gijón and includes the technical design and gameplay by the company DesConectando (board games crafting company), and my work as visual creator, illustrator and responsible of historical narrative context . This project was promoted and edited by the Gijón City Council, the Atlantic Botanical Garden, the Ministry for Ecological Transformation of the Government of Spain and the Biodiversity Foundation, and has been financed by the European Union.

In Minibosques de Gijón the player has the mission of creating a set of urban miniforests with the greatest possible botanical value. The player starts with an available plot of one type of soil card to create a small forest thanks to the round-by-round choice of different species of trees and bushes.

The game contains 4 different types of soil cards, 6 special scoring cards and 122 botanical species cards. All the elements (cards, box, score pad, rules brochure and botanical catalog) have been conceived and designed as ancient elements and documents in the style of the 19th century, in order to create the immersive atmosphere that would emanate from a real and old time capsule.