Wk 2: Day 4 - 6: Board design

So far, I had looked at board logos, card design and general logo for my theme. What I had not attempted was board design. So I allowed myself several days to draw up some basic concepts for a board. My photoshop version used Joshua Allen's basic board template that he had drawn up and posted on facebook for the rest of the groups use - as well as his own.



Josh Allen's basic board template.



In the template there were two distinct board blocks - the tiles that the players would move around and the build areas. The build areas would clearly have to be identifiable for a certain team or colour. I used washes of brown, with the dodge, burn and smudge tool to create the mud texture. Then i used block colours, with the burn or dodge tool to create the outer edging.

Given that my theme was simple building, I used a basic geometric looking pavement square design to be the board squares. They are plain but identifiable as pavement.



The corner square( created by combining three of the original pavement squares)



My Basic Board concept.

This board concept I created by placing my pavement squares onto Josh's board design. Then I placed the 4 build areas in each corner. Then I produced a simple centre piece and layered my Build it Up logo over the top. I asked a few people on my social network for their opinions. Most said it was okay, but they brought up key issues such as:

-The yellow and green build areas were hard to read.

-The centrepiece was dull and too simple

-The logo obscured the centrepiece and didn’t fit with the board.

I decided to address each problem, one by one.

I went about making the writing easier to read by first trying to edit the typeface colour - which didn’t help. Following that, and some advice from a friend who was proficient with Photoshop, I was introduced to the bevel effects. By using these I could raise the writing from the background with ease.

The next issue was the centrepiece, which was deemed too simplistic and dull. I attempted to make a courtyard and fountain to replace the park and lake. Again I was finding problems making it interesting and not dull. I experimented with a variety of Photoshop effects and finally found the below centrepiece was much more potent.

The above two images are my 'final' board concept. I once again asked a variety of people what they thought of the board and generally the reaction was positive. My only worry is that the board will become too busy with different icons. Still I have yet to see what my team mates have been producing so hopefully they will have insight into how to deal with that issue.