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spectria.limina (paraphrased)

In the Voidbinding chart, do the vertical lines [between the Windrunner/Edgedancer and Stoneward/Lightweaver-equivalent glyphs] mean anything special?

Isaac Stewart (paraphrased)

Hm, I don't know... it's been 15 years since I did that so I'll have to remember... I just see things I'd do differently. Like should there only be nine...?

Brandon had me do a bunch of stuff, so there probably is a reason. But it might be the kind of secret where he doesn't tell anybody and then way later explains it. So there might be a reason but I don't know what it is.

spectria.limina (paraphrased)

On the broadsheets distributed at the con, there's this glyph in the bottom right corner of the map. But in [The Lost Metal] there's writing instead of the glyph.

Isaac Stewart (paraphrased)

Oh yeah, I used to sign my art, but I felt it didn't fit in-universe, so I started using that glyph instead, then eventually I stopped doing that. It doesn't mean anything.

Questioner

You always come up with new ideas for books, when you have so many to write as is, that you've recently started to go from saying things like, "Whenever I get to this book," like the Threnody novel, to, "If I ever get to it." Would you ever let another author write for Cosmere?

Brandon Sanderson

That is possible. Isaac [Stewart], my art director and long friend for, you know, fifteen years, who's been collaborating on the visual style of Mistborn, really wants to write a Mistborn novel set on one of the Southern Continent places off by itself and I'm intrigued by this idea, 'cause he's somebody I've worked with for so long. So we might see how that happens. So far I haven't been willing to collaborate on any Cosmere stuff, but it's p-- I could see it happening.

Questioner

What was your design process for designing all of the star systems for each of the worlds?

Brandon Sanderson

I am lucky enough to have on staff one of my good friends, Isaac. He actually introduced me to my wife. He sent me on a blind date with Emily. He was one of my students, my second year teaching the class. He's a really good friend. At the time, he was an illustrator for a video game company who was just interested in fantasy books. And he saw that there was a class at BYU and he was like, "I'm gonna take that."

He now works for me full-time. Though, fun story on this. You know how some people joke that in their marriage there's one person they could cheat with, like a celebrity? When I hired Isaac, he was like, "I will come and do things for you full time. But if Tad Williams ever asks me, I'm doing something for Tad Williams," his favorite book series. This summer, Tad Williams needed a map for the new Osten Ard books. Isaac is like, "So, I do maps for Sanderson." He's like, "Sure, do one for me. Great!" So Isaac's been working on that and it has been a dream come true for him.

Isaac and I, we sit down and we do brainstorming sessions for the art. He's done almost all of the symbols and maps in my books, except the ones that he commissions someone else to do because he wanted to get a different style for it or the first book, Elantris, I did the symbols. That's why the Elantris symbols are not quite as visually interesting as some of Isaac's. They fit the world but I drew those and my artistic chops are... So Isaac and I sit down, we brainstorm and we say, "What do we want this to look like? What's the feel of it?" So I'll outline what the planets and the world are and then he will bring up historical- like he went and got Renaissance star charts and said, "Do any of these work? What do you like?" We kind of narrowed it down to ones that have the right feel but I said, "I want it more like this, more like this." He took that and ran with it and gave me iterations. He's like, "Here's four different versions of a map for Scadrial. Which one do you like?" And then I'll give him that and he'll then do four iterations on that, saying, "Here are different designs of this. Which one of these do you like?" Anyone who's an artist knows that illustrators, that's what they do. So we come up with it and then I say, "This style, go," and then he does all the maps.

Narkac

Who is the woman on the "Voidbringer Chart"?

Brandon Sanderson

Isaac did the art. It is just a pattern. She's no character in particular.

heynoswearing

So Haunted Man is Nazh right?

Yoitsthew

That’s what I’m thinking so I hope one day we get some context as to how he went from an antagonist to someone [Nicelle Sauvage] is galavanting around with! Maybe when u/Izykstewart finishes Boatload of Mummies we’ll know a little bit more about the in between??

Isaac Stewart

Maybe someday there will be more context to that. :)

Questioner

My crazy theory is that Nazh was Isasik Shulin...

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, he is not. Good question. Nazh is Isaac’s character, he designed him and came up with him. I said "I need somebody to be getting these" and the character is all him, doesn’t necessarily look like him. He doesn't actually look like him. But Nazh, he owns. He just credited that, and I knew people would look at that be like "What's going on here?" But it wasn't meant to be anything, just this is Isaac's character and if he ever-- He wants to write some stories in the cosmere, he might write about Nazh.

spectria.limina (paraphrased)

On [the Wax and Wayne deck of cards distributed as con swag], on the Joker, there's a figure that looks like it might be Autonomy, with a symbol in it that's kind of like the harmonium symbol but different. Is that symbol for trellium?

Isaac Stewart (paraphrased)

That's just a later version of the symbol for harmonium. Part of how the symbols evolved between eras. There are other differences too, like with the spikes. It's also the symbol for Scadrial.

The figure does look like they might be related to Trell, huh...?