Bestiary of the Fabled Occident

A long time ago I started to put together a bestiary. I've pursued various other projects in the time since but I still have a fair bit of material I'd like to publish and a reasonably coherent design philosophy. I'm honing an approach to the layout and information design. None of these three mockups are finalised.

For various strange  reasons I am establishing intense focus on the Mantyger family of heraldic grotesques: I am mesmerised by themes and variations within themes. The approach of just doing the mantygers does not illuminate the full range of procedural elements that could be utilised in this kind of bestiary but it does at least allude to the fact of their being a range of options that could be utilised.

Laying things out in Photoshop is very tedious. I will be moving onto Indesign to preserve my sanity.

Have a look at the layouts and be as excoriating in critique as possible. I have deliberately overdone things so as to infuriate design boffins into offering free advice.

Basic idea:

- Folkloric monster manual that draws from a variety of historical sources
- 10-word descriptions (I can't remember why I do this but I have been doing it for many years)
- Procedural generation to include as much intriguing miscellany as I can  get away with.
-Double page spread for most monsters, more condensed for less important

Open in new tab or you can't see anything

The Lampago and the Satyral are entirely without historical information, being nothing more that fanciful heraldic charges