This week I decided to pick the game Ticket to Ride to write about. I don’t know a ton about games, but this is a board game that I really enjoy. It is intended for 2-5 players, and in the game players are trying to build a continuous rail line across a continent (the version I have is Europe).
The board is essentially a map of Europe, and players each start out with a few dozen plastic train components that they use to build their train line. Players have to collect and play cards in order to lay down tracks, and the game starts with players drawing the routes that they are trying to build throughout the game. If two players both need to travel through the same city one of the players will have to play one of only three train station components allocated to them. While building train tracks and placing down the train components earns players points, having to use a train station component will cost the player at the end of the game. Similarly, if a player is unable to successfully build one of the routes that they have selected, this will count against them in the end.
This is a very fun game that involves strategy and is great for a range of ages.
For this AR panel project, Emily, Walker and I chose to use thrift stores around Seattle as out point of interest. We decided to make informational panels in Eyejack to enhance a potential customer or visitor’s experience. This way a viewer of the panels can learn more information about each store through the panels. As a group we decided that we wanted to include important information about each store, like their amenities as well as some information about what the store offers and what makes it unique.
For my panel project i focused on Red Light Vintage on University Way in the U District. This is a unique store that stocks a lot of vintage clothing from the 1920s to the early 2000s. It also stocks vintage inspired clothing, as well as vintage costume pieces and some new items like novelty socks and glasses.
For the first panel, our group decided to focus on 6 amenities that customers might be looking for when they visit the store. These include things like dressing rooms, restrooms and wheel chair accessibility.
In the middle panel we each created a poster type image with our store’s logo and an animation. For the final panel we decided to include more qualitative information about what kinds of clothing the store stocks, and whether the store will buy or trade customers’ clothing.
To create the project, we created a shared group Figma file where we each created our panels. After creating the informational panels I started to work on creating an animated panel with the Red Light logo. Unfortunately Red Light does not appear to have an official logo, so I decided to take inspiration from the distinctive neon signs in the shop’s window to make a logo. I created a neon type treatment in Illustrator, which was challenging, and only worked on a dark background. For the animation i decided to make several variations of a checkerboard pattern, inspired by the tile floor of the store. I placed the logo in each frame and created the animation in Eyejack. It was fun to go back to Red Light after making the panels to get to see them in action.
When thinking about myself like a Swiss army knife, I found that there were a couple of skills that I already have, and many that I need to develop. The tools I currently have I would consider to be illustration and creativity. I feel that my previous experience studying fine art gives me many of the skills and experience necessary to create illustrations. This ability is something that I find useful, because I feel that it in turn influences my process as a designer. Having spent time developing illustration skills means that I’ve developed some visual skills and that I have some experience communicating in a visual format. Building my illustration skills, as well as other creative pursuits, has encouraged me to think creatively and take a creative approach to problem solving.
The tools I have that need development: design skills, concepts, writing, typography skills. I know that my design skills are far from where I would like them to be, and I don’t always know the best design approach to communicate the idea or message that I am trying to convey. Likewise I have some conceptual skills from my previous education, but concepts in the world of fine art are very different from design concepts, so I intend to continue to refine these skills in a design space. I would also like to develop my copywriting skills, as I feel that it could be a helpful addition to my skill set as a designer. Additionally, I know that typography, especially text heavy layouts are something that are challenging and unfamiliar to me coming from a more illustration heavy background. Type layout is a skill that I need to develop more.
Tools I do not have that I need to learn: branding design, UI/UX design, building a portfolio, presenting and pitching. I am very interested in branding design, but I understand that I have only just scratched the surface of what there is to know. UI/UX design is also something that I have only just started to learn about, but I think that it will be a valuable skill, and help make me a more versatile and competitive designer. I also still have a lot to learn about what’s needed to put together a successful portfolio for design, and what types of projects to feature for what kinds of jobs. Similarly, I know that presenting my work not only in a portfolio, but also directly to a client in a meeting will be a very important skill that I need to practice much more.
Although I know that I have some skills already, there are many that still need to be developed for me to be a successful designer after my time at SCCA. I’m glad that I can start thinking about these skills now so that I can start to understand what kinds of projects and challenges I need to give myself to continue to grow as a designer.
For this assignment I chose to make a poster using a GIF as the AR element. I have been wanting to learn how to use Procreate software to make GIFs of my illustrations, so this seemed like a great opportunity to learn this element of the software.
When I was getting started I knew that it would be a good choice to illustrate something I feel comfortable drawing, and something that would translate well in movement. I had a difficult time picking a concept, and had a lot of ideas that I wouldn’t be able to execute in a week. I decided to choose a concept of creating a poster for a tulip festival, where viewers would be able to use the QR code to see the poster in motion, where the flower starts growing.
This was ultimately a challenging project, and it was difficult to learn how to make GIFs while also designing a poster and using the AR software for the first time. The GIF itself was quite challenging to make because I chose to create and animate an illustration, which required that the GIF be hand drawn frame by frame. Fortunately, Eyejack was very easy to use and it was quick to put together the AR component of this project. It was also so exciting to see the poster come to life!
Above is a screenshot of my layers panel in procreate, showing the frames for the GIF. I reused the drawing of the stem and leaves, but had to redraw the flower for each frame. The transparent layers in the main area of the screen shows each frame stacked on top of each other.
In the end I’m happy with how the poster turned out, and I’m excited to use procreate to make more GIFs in the future.
For this assignment I picked the prompt “Stone-age Home Entertainment”. When I think of stone-age I think of cavemen living in caves (not sure if that is accurate to the era), but I thought it would be funny to make an image where cavemen are relaxing in a similar way to how modern humans relax. I started by deciding what I wanted my image to end up being: I would like the image to have 2-4 cavemen in a cave sitting in armchairs made of stone. The cavemen are looking at a wall of the cave which is covered in cave paintings in the style of the Lascaux cave paintings. The wall has drawings of animals in earthy ochre and sienna colors, and the animals in the drawings look like they’re in motion. The cavemen are sitting in front of the cave painting as though they are watching tv.
I also made a sketch of what I wanted the composition to look like roughly.
I used Bing image generator to create my AI images. The first prompt that I used was: cartoon picture of cavemen in a cave sitting and looking at cave paintings
These were the most successful images from this prompt:
I felt that these were an ok start, but the overall look was not what I wanted. The images were much more cartoony and cutesy than I was looking for, and I didn’t account for the AI image generation software not knowing what a cave painting was (although I thought the easels were funny).
For the next batch of images, I changed my prompt slightly. I was hoping to get a less cartoony style, and a cave art that looks more like an actual cave painting. I also wanted to see if I could get the cavemen sitting in stone armchairs. The prompt I used for the second round was: picture of cavemen in a cave sitting on chairs made of rock and looking at ancient cave paintings.
This round was much more successful. I found that the image looked pretty close to what I had imagined in my sketch! I was still hoping to get closer to what I was imagining, where the cave paintings on the walls looked more like prehistoric cave paintings of animals.
For the final round the prompt I used was: picture of cavemen in a cave sitting on chairs made of rock and looking at ancient cave paintings on a stone wall.
This image turned out pretty well, I thought that the way the AI software rendered the painting and the wall of the cave seemed more like an actual cave painting. Although I thought it was funny that the chairs that the cavemen are sitting in look like normal lawn chairs instead of rocks.
Over all this was a fun exercise and I thought that Bing image generator did a pretty good job creating images based on the prompts I gave.
Prompts used:
cartoon picture of cavemen in a cave sitting and looking at cave paintings
picture of cavemen in a cave sitting on chairs made of rock and looking at ancient cave paintings
picture of cavemen in a cave sitting on chairs made of rock and looking at ancient cave paintings on a stone wall
For this app review project I chose to download and review an augmented reality app called SolAR. This app allows users to view planets in the solar system in 3D. It also has an AR feature where users can view a planet transposed into their surroundings. Both the 3D and AR features allow users to pan around the planet and view it from different angles, as well as as a video feature where users can view days simulated on the planet.
The app has easy to use menus that allow users to make changes to the scale of the planet, as well as view facts about each planet. The option to scale the planets is particularly useful so that the user can choose to see the scale of the planet in realistic proportion to a moon (or moons), or view the planet and surrounding moon(s) at a scale that is easier to see.
The main downside to this app experience is that, while the app is free to use, it requires a paid version to view any planets beyond mars in our solar system.
Another potential pitfall to this app is that I found that viewing planets in AR didn’t really bring any new information or experience that wasn’t already present in the 3D simulation. However I can see why the AR simulation would be engaging for children, and could potentially increase interest in learning about space.
Additionally, I felt that there could have been more UX interactions to allow users to find more facts and information about the planet. For example if users could tap on features of the planet to learn what they are called or what substance they are made of.
Overall this app was very well designed, thought out and simple to use. The AR simulation was seamless, because the planets are floating and solid they lend themselves well to being transposed into a users surroundings. This was a fun app to use and I could see it being useful as an educational tool to help students engage with planets in the solar system.
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