concept

Wildlife Refuge Game

| terriaw

The final project for my concept development class was to design a board game that we could play in class. I don’t play board games too much anymore, so I wasn’t sure where to start. I bought a box of animal crackers, thinking I could use the cute animal cookies for player pieces. But I don’t like circuses, so I wanted to come up with another idea.

Then I considered doing a “day at the zoo” theme, so I started to illustrate my board to look like a zoo map. After watching an interesting show on the Animal Planet channel about sea life, I decided to make a game about wildlife trivia.

I searched for little figures that looked like safari people with no luck, so I used player pieces from another game that we never play.

I found some shiny red cardstock I cut into rectangles for the path and animal print cardstock I used to print the game rules, trivia cards, and answer key.

To top it off, I made a set of drawstring bags out of this fabulous zebra print to hold all the little pieces, trivia cards and rules – proof that I actually have been sewing a little lately!

I’ve never designed a game before, so I loved coming up with ideas and figuring out ways to make this playable and fun. This project was a lot of work with a short deadline, but I’m happy with how it turned out. We played a round in class, when I found out I needed to adjust the wording on a couple trivia cards, which was great feedback. I also learned we could use about 100 more trivia cards, which I will have to make available in the second edition!

Designing a Billboard

| terriaw

For my concept development class, we had to come up with an idea for a billboard. Our main challenge was to show contrast, whether that be through value, color, shape, size, texture, scale, proximity, placement, or just something unexpected. I chose scale for my design. We were allowed to make part of the billboard extend outside our parameters of 3-1/2 inches by 12 inches, which can make it more eye-catching.

I was originally thinking about doing some type of public service message, like “stay in school” or “learn to read.” To be honest with you, I really don’t like billboards at all, so I decided to keep it light. Since garden season is upon us, I thought it would be fun to do a billboard for a seed company.


I worked out a few ideas with the usual process, thumbnail sketches and then a rough sketch, which I hated. So when it came time for me to do the final design, I worked a little slower and more deliberate. I really wanted those Prismacolor pencils to look shiny on the tomatoes and grassy on the background.

I’m really happy with how this turned out, so it was a good lesson for me to keep pushing myself. I’m off to work on more projects for finals. Have a great weekend, everyone!