The Soccer Field of Design
I played soccer from 1st grade till 10th grade, and my time playing was filled with a rollercoaster of emotions. I went from being one of the best players my first year of playing, to a period of struggle, back to success, and back to struggle. My final years of soccer culminated on a team called Knott’s Forest, where I played alongside talented players who could dribble the ball like Messi and shoot like Ronaldo. Two competitive edges I always had were my communication and understanding of strategy. Although I wasn’t the most skilled player, I could always lead the team and convey what we were doing well or struggling with and, most importantly, what needed to change. My lack of skill, however, often left me feeling like I should be on the same field as my fellow talented teammates. It felt hard to take space, but, because I quit soccer shortly after this realization, I was rarely ever confronted with this challenge afterwards; that is, until now.
Ever since taking CS377G, I fell in deep love with design, taking the time to understand the intricacies of what makes compelling board game design, whether it be because something looks visually appealing, or helps people better understand how something work. CS247i helped further my understanding as I how important alignment was in grouping common topics, how important size and color could be in creating visual hierarchy, and how important white space is in defining divine as opposed to dastardly design. Although I had developed such a deep understanding of how these different components of visual design worked together, when it came time to design, I felt like I was drowning, especially throughout P1 and P2. I was surrounded by two incredibly talented designers in the form of Eric and Jeremy, and it seemed like life had come full circle: I could understand strategy and lead, but I couldn’t produce the work to feel like I could take space. The only difference was this time, I couldn’t run away from this problem by quitting.
(It probably would have also helped to take 147 first lmao).
Throughout P1 and P2, I felt a cat constantly grabbing my tongue as my stubborn self constantly stopped me from asking for help. I wanted to design something myself, after all, I understood and knew all the components of what makes good, meaningful, and compelling visual design, but despite this extensive knowledge, none of my designs proved worthy. I realized that knowing wasn’t enough, I had to get my hands dirty and continually practice and refine my design skills until I could truly make something meaningful, even if that meant suffering through P1 and P2 with ugly designs that my teammates had to make-up for. I needed to feel comfortable asking for help and knowing that I didn’t know or have everything mastered, and that fact was okay! That’s why I was in the class, to grow.
Come P3, I was invigorated with a desire to make a beautiful product that followed the principles of good information architecture, good visual design, was educational, and was fun to play all at the same time. I challenged myself with designing the Player Boards, one of the most fundamental and important part of our games. And with constant consideration of CRAP and various other components of visual and information design, was able to create a beautiful board! I also swallowed my pride and asked for help when it was necessary. I do also attribute my change in confidence to the fact that we started working with serious games: a topic that I spent a whole quarter in with the exact same teacher, but, even then, I had a fear that I was still going to produce subpar work, especially after P1 and P2. But, through hardwork and a clear focus on intentionality, I was able to improve my design skills and work and communicate in a group effectively.
From a perspective of ideation, we ended up using group brainstorming with sticky notes, similar to what we did for P1, and it proved incredibly useful. Although we walked into class with two ideas, we realized that for a board game, we might want to do a more thorough brainstorming process, mainly because we can make many different types of board games and the first two ideas we walked into class with might not necessarily be the best. And through this extensive brainstorming process, we go to the idea we have now with Climate Crisis.
As a whole, this class served as a cold shower in the best way possible. I still have a lot to learn, especially with respect to visual design, but through continued extensive hands on work, hopefully I can turn into what I was my final year of soccer: a captain.
I want to give big thanks to Christina Wodtke and Ben Barnett for putting together such an amazing class and quarter!
