The Appendix N Book Club is a podcast that reviews the various books that inspired the creation of Dungeons and Dragons. The logo had to represent the low fidelity look and feel of D&D back then rather than the highly polished version of the game that exists today. 

Inspiration: Erol Otus
Although there was a great deal of low fi artwork produced by various in-house illustrators for D&D I was always drawn to the highly stylized work of Erol Otus.

Originally created for an ad this drawing was created by a different artist. It contains a girl reading a book with various creature limbs emerging from the darkness behind her. It was used in lieu of a logo for the first few years of the podcast's existence.

I always start by doing a sheet of micro drawings to get all my ideas down on paper. These are so small you can see the grain of the paper in these photos.

This first concept combines two elements from the games (a twenty sided die and a gem) into one with an 'N' from the D&D logo in its center. 

Further keeping the 'N' as the hero this type-only concept is reminiscent of the style of logos used in many D&D books and scenarios. 

Thinking about the worlds that get conjured up from the novel's text I used a magical smoke emerging from a book with the 'N' coalescing into reality as if summoned by a spell.

After portraying the 'N' as the hero in several concepts I wanted to a reader to one of them. In thinking about something intrinsic to D&D that emphasized reading or looking I immediately hit upon the idea of using the 11 eyed Beholder creature. Here they are engrossed in one of the Appendix N books.