Guilherme Gontijo is a Brazilian, designer, writer, and RPG enthusiast. He is the author of Into the Bronze, an old school role-playing game set in the Bronze Age of a magical Mesopotamia.
His day job as a graphic designer, and his love of RPGs, inspired him to give the covers of some classic Fighting Fantasy gamebooks a drastic makeover, and he posted the finished pieces on Twitter.The Warlock used his scrying sphere to track Guilherme down and drag him back to Firetop Mountain to interrogate him about his reimagined book covers.
The Warlock: When did you first get into Fighting Fantasy? Which was the first book you read? Do you have a favourite adventure?
Guilherme Gontijo: My first contact with Fighting Fantasy books was back in the '90s. I had a friend who was very much into gamebooks and he lent me The Warlock of the Firetop Mountain for a weekend. It was totally different for me because I was not used to a solo RPG experience. Until this day it remains my favorite one, mostly because of all the memories of my childhood it brings.
TW: What inspired you to redesign the covers of some of the classic Fighting Fantasy gamebooks?
GG: I lost a friend to COVID-19 some time ago and this process of redesigning something so precious to me helped me to deal with my grief in hard times. Beside, redesigning covers you love is always a very fun exercise!
TW: Do you have a background in graphic design?
GG: Yes, I have been a graphic designer for a few years, and work mostly in art direction and layout design. Back in design school days we used to redesign a lot and that sharpened our skills and imagination.
TW: Can you tell me a bit about the thinking behind your redesigns?
GG: The whole idea behind the redesigns was to make it modern and yet nostalgic. The modernism aesthetic has this strange power to look highly retro-futuristic and because of that it was a logical choice for the redesigns. The colour palettes were all based on the original covers and most of the illustrations paid homage to them in some way or another. It was quite a challenge because when you redesign a much-loved series like Fighting Fantasy, you deal with the expectations of diehard fans. From what I saw on social medias, the fans liked them a lot, thank God!
TW: Are there anymore FF covers you would like to reimagine?
GG: I would love to design another run with the sci-fi adventures this time! Especially Space Assassin, Starship Traveller, Freeway Fighter, and Appointment with F.E.A.R.
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