Welcome to the third developer diary for East vs. West: A Hearts of Iron game! We get a lot of questions from curious people. Gamers, naturally, but also aspiring artists in general. We've even had a mother asking if it was worthwhile to have her son studying game graphics in college. Today we wanted to bring you some insights on the subject of graphical game art.The most obvious part for our game, and the place where the player spends most time looking, is the graphics user interface (GUI). The purpose of graphical design is to increase interaction with the functionality and theme/content of the game. So you should be following project guidelines throughout this process. We co-ordinate with the coding department and the production team to make sure that our first drafts and sketches of the GUI are in line with their goals. When designing the GUI we all stick to the same Cold War theme. We’ve gotten ideas from films, books, old printed ads, architecture, art and even military and industrial equipment – there’s a small story hidden behind almost every pixel. As an artist drawing from history, there are lots of places to find inspiration and harvest for mental resources.Bare polished metal plates with folders, old paper documents and secret files piled up, dusty glowing buttons, Commodore like keyboard keys, old factory toggle knobs and scratched TV screens – just another day in your imaginary rusty Cold War bunker that comes to life every time you start up the EvW game. Want to put in an order for some attack helicopters Comrade General? With a brand new arsenal, hard work and dedication, we've aimed to dazzle you with some splendid eye candy!But it's not just the graphical 'spit and polish' we have to focus on. The actual content we put in is equally important as well. An excellent case in point is the policies that, by-and-large, have replaced the ministers most of you will recognize from the original Hearts of Iron 3 games. The player can choose to pursue different policies during the game depending on his government's stance. And while the effect of some of the policies are blatantly obvious, others certainly are not. The challenge was to find the right imagery that helps you to easily understand the policy mechanics.Though most of the 'old' ministers have been replaced with the more generic policies, not all of them have been scratched from the roster. The Head of State (HoS) and Head of Government (HoG) for the individual countries are kept but the graphics format has changed, from the small 36x50 pixels format to the larger 68x68 pixel format, which will show details a lot more clearly than the old one did. Equally important though, is the switch from black and white to color, at least in concept. Though color imagery is more present for the Cold War era than it was for WWII, there's still a lot of footage only available in black and white. Given enough time and patience, it's possible to apply some magical powder, a blueprint for good measure and big chunks of artistry for recoloring. Here are two examples, Georgiy Malenkov and Anastas Ivanovich Mikoyan. Mikoyan didn't actually make it into the game, but it does show what can be achieved by using color and some tweaking to bring images to life.In East vs. West we also bring to life the battlefield with time appropriate 3D models. What is more evocative of global tensions then a column of tanks and men facing down your enemies, or some seeing some of your wonderful ships roaming the seven seas? I guess sneaking submarines around would be the only thing rivaling that, but you be the judge of that. So here are images of a Soviet Kuznetsov class Aircraft Carrier and an American Lafayette class submarine.While you spend your time panning around the map and picking the right policy for your government, remember that the pixels you see have been crafted for you with care and precision. Each stroke of our digital pencil, each layer of our digital paint or sculpting of our models, our main aim has been your enjoyment. Thank you for your attention!Grega Trobec, Maarten van Tintelen, Ajay Choudhary, Martin Danevang & our partners at Paradox South