Presenter: Andy Lei Tung (1st year graphic design)

Far back to the beginning, when I was asked to do a response product

base on a specific social responsibility, my though was to make a design

to guide the children about the importance of managing money because

adults have been given too many opportunities to learn about the money

management. Teaching young kids, which are going to be the future of

the society, about the importance and techniques about managing

money mecomes more important and effective.

What you see on the left side is a sketch I did in the really beginning because at that time, my plan was to make a poster which planned to be hanged on kindergardens’ and primary schools’ walls to educate young kids about the topic. All the places you see a bubble and word “idea” inside was going to be replaced by iconny illustractions showing sences about how people managing money in real life. The reason why the poster is designed mostly graphicly is to bring kids’ interest about reading it and helps them to understand it. However, very soon, this idea was rshifted by another idea…

“Why don’t I make a game?” I asked myself. We all know that kids love to play, and they suppose to be very

happy if they can learn from playing a game, so what about I make a game to imitate the shopping activities in real world, in another word, kids are able to “earn money”, “buy items” and “managing money” in the game.

 There’s actually a very famous video game also called Monopoly in China. It soon became the guide line for my design.

Monopoly. From http://img.ledanji.com/other/game/game/img/944/26bf881c9fd913c231d14f0180554480_t_w520_h390.jpg

What you see on the left is the first sketch of the game map. What I tried to do here is to make a map looks like the streets and avenues in a city so the game will look more connected to the real world. The game will be played with four different kinds of cards, which are responsed to the same color spuares on the map. They are the “item card”, “good luck card”, “bad luck card”, and “question card” which are temporarily be designed in color red, green, black, and blue.

Soon, I started the second sketch. On the new version, the map is designed only leaving the border round because the old design seem too confusing. Also, the nomber of the cards is put down to three kinds instead of the original four. So now they are the “goal card”, “item card” and “question card”, which will be expressed more latter on. what shows on the middle of the map is a simple diagram sowing how the game can be played. I have a closer view here.

Here are sketch of some icons I designed for filling up the squares of the map in the game. These icons are aimed to be designed simple, representable, and easily recognizable. Some of these icons are designed to connect to the cards, and te others are designed to apply some special effect on the game, which in fact are kind of doing the job of the “good luck card” and the “bad luck card” in the earlier design.

What you see on the left side is the result of all the icons maken by digitai softwork and going to be used on forming the map. These icons are designed by using simple simbles on 3-domentional squares so they will be easy to recognized in small scale, and don’t losing visual interest in a big scale.

here is the map I designed for the game in digitally with the size when it is printed out. On the outboard, I get all the squares line up randomly to form the gaming area. On the middle, I created a simple diagram to show players how to win the game, which is the player who complete most goals or fastest completes all the goals win.

14 in

17 in

This is the back side of the map. Many people suggested me to make a instruction for the game, and I decided to do it on the back. The instruction is designed for parents to read instead of the kids, so I applied more writing on it. However, I still try hard to make it looks graphically and keep the texts on minimum so people will get more interest to read the instruction of the game.

From four kinds to three, the change is maken because I feel that in realy world, expecially in business, we can’t really rely on “luck”. That’s why I cancle the two “luck” cards and put a “goal card” instead. Another change is the colors. In the old design, colors arfe set temperaly without too much though, after a classmate told me that “red” was “bad” in business, I start to feel that color does matter.

“goal card” is designed in orange color as orange is the response for the word “goal”(gold). “Item card” is designed in blue because there are some product selling companies in Toronto that is using blue in their  company design like Best-buy, Wal-mart, and Bell.  So player will easily to connect selling item with color blue. The green one is the “question card”. Green is used here to keep player feel relaxed when they are asked a question. Also, green is a beautiful color. Many people have a lot of favour to it.

Here are the views for the “goal card”, “question card”, and the “item card” in both front side and back side. These cards are intented to be designed in simple form and at the same time avoid the mono-tone. The illus-traction on the back is actually the poster sketch I did in the earliest days. I feel it is good to bring some context between what I did before and the final design.

This is how the “goal card” looks like. On the card, there will be a list of all the goals player need to achieve. The reason why the card is set in monochrome of orange is to keep it simple and unitary. Orange is a color much nicer than yellow or gold. When it is set with the other two colors blue and green, they will all seem different but at the same time, no one will look out-standing from the other two.

Question card is designed in the similar style as the goal card, both have a bother in that card’s color theme and a radial gradient background. All the question cards get one question and several choices. Every choice will lead to a different result-either get price or punishment. The good result is painted in green, when the other punishments are in red. These two colors are used here because they are not only a pair of comple-mentary color, and they fit into the color theme of the card. Also, these color have been used in business to show “good” and “bad” for many years.

These items have different prices but both of the prices are really designed carefully base on their real price in the market. Because the money be signed in the game becomes smaller, the game becomes more playable as players have to play longer time to achieve the goals. there were some items cards designed in very high price for hard players before. However, because this game is focus on the young age group and intent to be realistic and educatived, in the final design, these cards are put down.

There are some items that be signed by a very low prices like the chocolate bar, the burger and the french fried. These items actually not going to be put on the goal list. The reason why they exist is because of the “card change reason”. Because in the game, players can change their card without seeing them, it will be funny if a player use a $2 chocolate bar to change another player’s $100 books.

There are also some items in the game that have special effect. The expression of the special effects are writen in smaller size text after the prize of the item. The reason why I apply the special effect item in the game are: first, I want to more unique elements into the game to make it more interesting. Also, it will allow players have more ability to control the the game’s context. More inportant is it makes the game closer to the real world because in the real world. Some times we are Inevitably have to buy something that is not our goal but we need them to “survive” and help achieving the goals. The same as the cheap price food card.

The game is primary set as a game on paper as the well-known monopoly game. The market of the product is not only aim at kindergardens and primary schools’ kids. I hope that everybody can enjoy it. So it can be played between kids,young people, family members, and friends. Also, I want to bring the message that not only video game is fun, the traditional game on paper can also be fun and educated. Also, it won’t damate people’s eyes that much as the game on screen.

Playing game. From imgl.eistudy.net/2013/0911/20130911090008460.jpg

Furthermore. I also think about other ways to play the game. For example, if we super enlarge the scale of the map and post it on the floor, then the kids can be the pieces of the game, so they will get more invented into the game. Also, it kinds of making the game become better to the kids because now. They are not only going to play with their wisdom, but also doing physical exercising at the same time.

Reference: Monopoly. From

http://img.ledanji.com/other/game/game/img/944/26bf881c9fd913c231d14f0180554480_t_w520_h390.jpg

Playing game. From imgl.eistudy.net/2013/0911/20130911090008460.jpg Sprig GliderPatrol. From http://www.sprigtoys.com/retail/downloads/AS/highres/Sprig_GliderPatrol-

6x6Kid.jpg Game die. From http://thumbs.dreamstime.com/x/game-die-3531837.jpg

Any more question??