Jesper Myrfors

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Jesper Myrfors
Jesper Myrfors
General Information
Born	Sweden
Status	Inactive: Alpha to Fallen Empires
Style	Acrylic Gouache, Horrific Elements
Education/ Training	Cornish College of the Arts
Scryfall Statistics
cards

Jesper Myrfors is Magic: The Gathering's first art director, and one of the original twenty-five artists. With Christopher Rush, he created the card back shared by all tournament-legal Magic cards. He worked for Wizards of the Coast from June 1993 until late 1994, and again from 1997 through August 2000. Since leaving the company, he has occasionally been a vocal critic of its leadership and practices.

During his time at Wizards, Myrfors filled several roles, though in the early years of Magic, those roles were not always clearly divided. He worked chiefly as art director, but was also credited as an artist, lead designer of The Dark, and author of some of the card texts in Alpha.

Education and art style

He graduated from Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Illustration. While in college, he met future Magic artists Anson Maddocks, Andi Rusu, Amy Weber, Sandra Everingham, and Cornelius Brudi.

Myrfors prefers to use acrylic gouache and pen and ink, but employs digital methods for design work. He is a fan of Lovecraft's work and its dreamlike qualities, and owns a handwritten original of one of Lovecraft's poems, but expressly distances himself from Lovecraft's racist views. He has named other Magic artists, including Rob Alexander and Ian Miller, as direct influences on his own work.

Art director

Circle of Protection: Black was Magic's first digital artwork, from Myrfors himself, despite his prohibition on digital art.

Myrfors submitted a portfolio to Lisa Stevens at Wizards of the Coast, hoping to contribute to Talislanta. She responded that his art was inappropriate for that franchise, but offered him the opportunity to submit further spec work. Those later submissions impressed Talislanta's creator, and Myrfors was hired. As a new hire, he was initially not trusted with knowledge of the then-unreleased Magic: The Gathering. When he did get the chance to play the game, he was impressed by the game's potential and requested that his future compensation be in company stock, rather than a cash salary. He was offered the role of art director for Magic while he was still a year away from completing his art degree. Lisa Stevens moved on to other roles at the company.

Myrfors pushed Wizards to commission original artworks for cards, rather than buying the rights to existing works. He argued that it would be far cheaper, and the initial Magic artists were paid $50 in cash, $50 in stocks, and were given 50 artist proofs per work. He selected the artists for Alpha from among his art school acquaintances, artists he had grown up with like Tom Wänerstrand, those he had worked with on other role-playing games, and recommendations from artists and art directors he knew. Following Alpha, he requested portfolios and sought further artists at conventions. He intentionally sought out less-established artists to ensure that the game would look unique.

Wizards of the Coast did not initially provide artists with a style guide. Myrfors assigned cards to artists by calling them on the phone and reading a list of available card names, allowing artists to pick which ones they wanted to illustrate. Myrfors felt that allowing the artists as much creative freedom as possible would create a stronger product, and he appreciates the diversity of the early artwork. All seven cards that were banned in 2020 for being culturally offensive were printed during his tenure as art director, although some were banned for their textual elements, rather than their art.

Despite the general lack of constraints on his artists, Myrfors did prohibit digital artwork. However, on the day that Beta was to go to press, the Magic team realized that Circle of Protection: Black had been left out of Alpha and still did not have artwork, so with no art supplies on hand, he violated his prohibition to produce artwork within the deadline.

At the start of the Rath cycle, he collaborated with artists Mark Tedin, Anson Maddocks, Anthony Waters, and Matt Wilson to create the first style guide. He wrote an afterword to the 2014 art book, The Gathering: Reuniting Pioneering Artists of Magic.

The Magic card back was designed by and uses textures created by Myrfors. Christopher Rush outlined the Magic logo and created the orbs of the color wheel.

Card frame and back

Myrfors designed the original card frame and card back. The textures on the card back were mostly derived from sample backgrounds that Myrfors had previously created while seeking gig work from photography studios. The blue oval was extracted from a painting and added to the card back in response to a dare from Lisa Stevens, who challenged Myrfors to utilize a "not very good" artwork that had been gifted to her. Christopher Rush outlined the "Magic: The Gathering" text and created the mana symbols. The "Deckmaster" logo was a last-minute addition demanded by the CEO.

On the card front, Myrfors chose the font Goudy Medieval for the card names, and chose to have all of the text except for the rules text in white. Mark Rosewater argued that the choice of text color made cards too hard to read at a distance, and made names especially difficult to see on white cards. He also took issue with some of the texture choices. Richard Garfield felt that Myrfors' frame did not put enough emphasis on creatures' power and toughness. Later, art director Jeremy Cranford described the frames as drawing too much attention to themselves, rather than the card art. These criticisms led to the creation of the 2003 "Modern" frame.

Departure and return

Myrfors resigned as art director after The Dark, a choice that he credits to occupational burnout from working 21-hour days. He was succeeded by Sandra Everingham and Sue Ann Harkey, but was rehired as art director following Portal. Harkey attributes that decision to Mark Rosewater wanting an art director who played Magic, and left the company in protest of the pay gap between herself and Myrfors.

During his second stint as art director, Myrfors found that the company had become "too big" and "too political", and grated against taking direction from people who had never played the game. He left Wizards again in August 2000, following a disagreement with the company's leadership over the role of Captain Sisay in the Weatherlight Saga. In a 2015 interview, he recounted that an executive had told him that the game's players "didn’t care about black women", and that Gerrard would be the main character of the story. Myrfors was offended by the racist statement and chose to leave the company. In the same interview, he noted that the leadership responsible for that story decision was no longer with WotC.

Artist

Several cards in Alpha were illustrated by Myrfors. On at least some occasions, he contributed art when the intended artist was unable to provide a finished work, or when a card was added to the card file late in the development process. Fallen Empires is the last set to include new artwork by Myrfors. Until the release of 30th Anniversary Edition, his artwork had last been reprinted on Time Spiral's timeshifted sheet, and before that, in Sixth Edition in 1999.

• Notable artworks by Jesper Myrfors
• 
  The art for Ironroot Treefolk was the first completed Magic card art.
• 
  Alchor's Tomb was intended to be Alchor's Tome, but the error was spotted early enough to change the card's name to match the art.
• 
  Armageddon
• 
  Atog. This artwork inspired the appearance of later atogs.
• 
  Word of Command has been frequently named one of the worst card arts in Magic.
• 
  Cosmic Horror - One of several cards where his Lovecraftian inspirations are extremely obvious.
• 
  Goblin King is one of the first lords.
• 
  Evil Eye of Orms-by-Gore

Lead designer

The Dark was created by Myrfors. He saw a gap in Wizards' release schedule and worked to ensure that he would have his set ready to fill that slot. He wrote the set to allow himself to publish artwork with themes and styles he preferred. It also allowed him to fulfill requests from other Magic artists for chances to make darker artwork. While he does not deny a link between The Dark and the Dark Ages, he says that the set is inspired by Lovecraft, the Spanish Inquisition, American puritanism, his love of horror, and his distrust of organized religion. He wanted to demonstrate that white was "not all kisses and flowers" and can be realized in theocracy and fascism. However, he did not perform the art direction for his set. The Dark was art directed by Sandra Everingham. Steve Bishop and Beverly Marshall Saling also contributed to The Dark's design.

• Selected artworks by Myrfors in The Dark
• 
  Eater of the Dead
• 
  Elves of Deep Shadow. Modeled by musician Amber Bird.
• 
  Orc General
• 
  Season of the Witch
• 
  Sisters of the Flame
• 
  Myrfors referenced a photo taken while exploring underground at Fort Worden to paint The Fallen.
• 
  Witch Hunter

Later criticisms

Myrfors claims that the 30th Anniversary Edition copyright notice on some cards is in error.

Myrfors has offered several complaints about Wizards of the Coast in the decades since he left the company. As of 2015, he believed that the art direction favors detailed artwork that is cluttered and unreadable at the small scale of the cards. He stated that Magic suffered from the decision to no longer commission artist Quinton Hoover, which occurred roughly five years before Hoover's death. Despite those concerns, he acknowledged the excellence of the artists active then, and said that some of the modern artwork makes his jaw drop.

He feels that early artists were betrayed by Wizards' leadership when payment for artwork transitioned from lifetime royalties to up-front commissions. That change was initiated during the tenure of Sue Ann Harkey, who accepted that the company's leadership had positioned her as the "bad guy". When his Alpha artwork was reprinted in 30th Anniversary Edition, he posted on social media to highlight a change in the copyright notice on those cards. He asserts that, like other artists who were initially paid royalties, he never surrendered the copyright to his artwork.

When Wizards of the Coast deemed a set of seven cards culturally offensive in 2020, Myrfors posted a response to clarify that the figures depicted on Invoke Prejudice were inspired by the Spanish Inquisition rather than the KKK, but agreed with Wizards' decision. He has praised the company's commitment to representing diversity.

Other work

After his first departure from Wizards, Myrfors art directed for another card game, Shadowfist. With fellow Magic artist Brian Snoddy, he created the card game Deadfellas.

He co-founded Hidden City Games with his wife, Julie "Spoops" Myrfors, with whom he has also produced a children's book. Hidden City published the game Clout: Fantasy. The couple lost their house when that company failed.

Myrfors is credited as an artist for Greyborn Studios as of 2025.

Personal life

Myrfors was born in Stockholm, and his family moved to the United States when he was two years old. He retains his Swedish citizenship. He once dated artist Kristen Bishop. Jesper and his wife Julie Myrfors (née Meyers) married in 2005 and have a daughter.

Gallery

• 
  Bad Moon
• 
  Camouflage
• 
  Cursed Land
• 
  Fog
• 
  Living Lands
• 
  Obsianus Golem
• 
  Pestilence
• 
  Shimian Night Stalker