One of the highlights of writing and talking about board games is that it’s a developing industry where you have a lot of entrepreneurs who just love the hobby, and it shows. Creating fascinating stories of risks and passion and how they turn it into a full-time gig.
Recently, Tony Webb from Meeple Design reached out and asked about promoting their storefront. Where he and his wife sell all sorts of board gaming merchandise, from dice, to mugs, to posters and hoodies. If you like board games, you’ll find something to love.
However, me being me, I was keen to hear their story. So I replied:
How about an interview?
Hi Tony, thanks for taking the time out for this interview.
The first few years of creating a startup are always the most precarious. So big congratulations on making it this far.
I’d be keen to hear about how you got started, from your entry into board gaming to the point where you were like… why are our walls white? And not covered with board game art?
My wife, Hannah, and I have both been playing board games since we were kids and, I imagine, like most people we played the typical roll and move style games like Monopoly, The Game of Life, Cluedo, Go For Broke.
We stopped playing board games when we got a bit older and drifted away from them for years. When we met we started talking about our love of board gaming and started getting back into it. That’s when we realised there was a whole new world of games that had completely passed us by.
We started to seriously get back into the hobby when we played Ticket to Ride for the first time in 2013 and were hooked. Every year we brought each other games for Christmas & Birthday presents and separately bought pictures & art to put up in our flat.
When we started shopping around for non game or game accessory gifts for each other, that’s when we realised there just wasn’t much out there for Board Game Geeks. That led us to creating our own products and starting Meeple Design in 2018.
My story is somewhat similar, grew up playing Checkers and Connect 4, then stopped until one of my friends pulled out Munchkin. Something stirred in me that day, something I haven’t been able to quell since.
Back to the artwork, it’s fantastic, it’s minimalistic yet colourful. I imagine they make a statement on the wall. How did you guys come up with the style?
Firstly we both like that kind of art style like retro travel posters and similar to Olly Moss so it seemed like a good place to start. We also wanted to make sure that the artwork of our posters is different to the artwork of the board games that inspire them and that if someone has multiple of them up on their wall that they look like they are part of a set.
Another bonus of this design style is even though we call them our minimalist travel designs, most of the designs are quite zoomed out. So it allows us to add a lot of detailing into the posters to show off the different elements of the game.
Alright, but then how do you go about choosing which games to make stuff for, is it just your favourite games you’re playing at the moment? Or do you do any research into which games are hot?
It’s a mixture, we look at evergreen games that we feel are always going to be popular, the games we are playing that we are enjoying, current popular games (although we try not to place too much emphasis on this) and then also which games we feel like we are able to bring something to with our design style.
There’s got to be some method to the madness, how do you determine what is an evergreen game? What’s been your strike rate so far? What’s been the best pick so far? And what’s been the worst – like one you thought would do well but just fell flat?
We like to think that we stay in touch with the current trends and hotness so have a pretty good idea of the games that are popular. However there are so many games already released and new games on the way that is where we use our favourite research tool, Board Game Geek. It helps us identify new hyped games that we may have missed and look at the BGG ranking off older games. It is also useful for us to pay attention to the exhibitions like UKGE, Essen and Gen Con to see what is on the way.
Terraforming Mars was one of our first designs and has been a big hit for us and Everdell is also another ever popular design. However, we love our Ghost Stories design and it is one of our favourite games but it hasn’t been hugely popular.
I’ve noticed that you’ve taken on additional artists for posters. So this one is for all the artists out there. How do I get my art on Meeple Design, and what’s the incentive to do so?
We would encourage artists to reach out to us as we are always looking to develop design ranges and we want to build lasting relationships with the artists we work with.
Outside of posters, Meeple Design also does other homewares, like this amazing Azul pillow, is there any thought to expanding this range?
The homeware products were an addition to our store towards the end of 2021. This year we are aiming to expand our range of homeware, and other, products available through Meeple Design and are working on developing some new all over print designs which we are hoping will be ready in the next month or so.
I’m looking forward to seeing what you guys come up with. So we’ve got artwork, and homewares, what’s next for Meeple Design? Where do you expect to go in the next 1-3 years?
In September we will be attending our first Board Game event as an exhibitor at Tabletop Gaming Live in Manchester, UK. Next year we want to attend more UK shows like UK Games Expo & Aircon and would love to go to some international events in the future.
Obviously, we want to continue working on new products to expand our store and we would love to work with independent publishers/ designers to help them develop products for their games.
Wow, that sounds like a lot of work. Stepping away from Meeple Design, and board games for a second, Hannah wrote about Hygge and Board Gaming, I’m wondering what you guys do outside of our lovely hobby to embrace the Hygge lifestyle?
Take time away from screens, enjoy a book with a hot drink when it is cold & raining outside, picnics etc
At the moment, I’m reading A Brief History of Tomorrow which I am enjoying but would recommend the first book Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind more. I also borrowed a manga series from a friend, chapters 1 to 9 of Chainsaw Man which is the first manga I have read and it is more than slightly odd but definitely interesting.
Hannah is more of a reader than me. The most recent book she finished was Buried in the Sky and found it interesting as it highlighted the experiences of the Sherpa climbers & Pakistani high altitude porters a lot more than other similar books.
Thanks so much for your time so far, but before I wrap up, I need some closure! Did you guys end up playing your ‘new’ games? And how’s your shelf of shame looking now?
I have just gone back to it as I forgot what games were on our shelf of shame in 2021 and wow, we played The 7th Continent which unfortunately was not for us.
However, we still haven’t got round to playing The City of Kings, Kingdom Death Monster and the 2 expansions, although we have played a lot of Ghost Stories so it is probably time to add in the expansion.
Also, I have to admit that between playing through the Gloomhaven campaign, Meeple Design, discovering a bring & buy event at our FLGS and life admin, we have now added some more games to our shelf of shame.
Hahaha, it’s always the case with board games. Well, you made it to the last question. An easy one to finish on:
What are your favourite board games at the moment?
There are so many great games I feel like it is the hardest question. Based purely on the number of recent plays it has to be Dice Thrones, it’s such a quick, easy and fun game to get to the table with so much variation between the different characters.
For me, I am also loving Spirit Island as it is a meatier version of Pandemic and my Hannah is loving The Quacks of Quedlinburg which is a fun game that we managed to get to the table quite a bit but borrowed it off of someone so had to give it back now.
I’ve got to thank Tony so much for taking time out of his busy life for this interview, and being extremely patient as I worked through the last month. If you haven’t already, go have a look at Meeple Design’s website where recently they’ve released their Tabletop Tycoon series, including shirts and posters of Everdell, Flourish, and Alien Frontiers. No surprise that they all look fantastic.
You can read more about Tony and Hannah on their blog. Or follow Meeple Design on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest.
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