The RPW Card (RPWC) project asks you to create a digital trading card inspired by card-based table-top games that demonstrates your ability to write focused, concise descriptions, and that demonstrates your growing design knowledge, and your technical proficiency with appropriate design tools. The RPWC is challenging because it requires you to harness knowledge of design, genre, media, professionalism, and audience expectations in the production of an authentic content-driven information product.
This project requires prototype and final submissions (Version 1, Version 2). All files are submitted to an RPW Card folder in your shared course space on Dropbox.com.
For each submission stage, you'll post the following documents:
By your final submission stage, your project folder should contain 5 files for my review. For the full list of core and supporting documents/files, see Submission Requirements.
The RPWC project brings together elements of research, design thinking, and information design into the construction of a document with a variable set of genre standards. Two challenges are key to your success with the project: understanding genre conventions for design (including expectations for content and layout); and, building connections among design knowledge, design strategy, and professionally relevant tools and technologies.
Design work draws on standards from a variety of places. This project asks you to consider design conventions and audience expectations for card-based games. Although such games are typically designed so their playing cards are distinct from those in competing products, we can observe patterns for content and design within categories of games. For example, deck-building games (e.g., Magic: The Gathering, Pokemon, Exploding Kittens) differ from similar components of tabletop board games (e.g., Settlers of Catan, Dominion). All of these vary from classic sports-related trading cards, and yet there are content elements and design conventions that run parallel among all of these categories of game cards.
This project asks you to build upon common requirements provided in this assignment description, drawing on your established or emerging awareness of genre conventions for the design of trading cards. The end results will represent your attempts to create an authentic, genre-aware design that meets the core specifications for the RPW Card document.
All information design projects require you to blend design knowledge, strategy, and tools in some way, shape, or form. For this assignment, I attempted to create a scenario that would offer design challenges that are new to most of you, if not all. Although I could be wrong, I assume that at least some of the design processes and tools that you encounter this semester are new to you. If so, that would make your experience consistent with countless others before you.
Although many students are at least somewhat familiar with the design tools and technologies we use to engage with design problems, it is a rare student who has significant experience with every tool they encounter here. When processes, tools, and technologies are new to you, do the research to locate support through web spaces (i.e., for companies that provide the tool) or video services (e.g., YouTube). Doing so puts you in charge of your knowledge acquisition and supports you in the use of the tools and technologies that you have access to.
Although the knowledge you acquire of specific tools is secondary in importance to the problem-solving strategies and general design knowledge you develop, the tool expertise is an essential element of your professional toolkit. That said, do not invest time in a project without also investing in the most-appropriate tools and technologies necessary for producing quality work. Take advantage of the university's resources and of the open-source tools that complement them. If you have never before this semester used Adobe InDesign, then recognize that doing so may slow you down. Plan for that extra time commitment.
Deliverables: memo, trading card
Document scope: 150 words (memo), 2 panels (refer to specs below)
Project value: 250 points (50 for prototype; 200 for final)
Evaluation rubric: _Eval_RPWCard.pdf
Recommended tool(s): Adobe InDesign, Adobe Photoshop, scanning device/app, digital camera
The RPWC project requires you to construct a 2-panel trading card that presents your design abilities and vision to audiences. Your Card document will present these details using text and images in a coherent, genre-driven layout.
First choose a genre of trading card to drive your design decisions. You need not emulate the visual aesthetic of a specific game, but do consider the overall qualities and characteristics of content for the category of games from which you draw inspiration. Cards that depict fantasy characters, for example, present details about those subjects with a recognizable pattern of language that establishes and maintains the feel of that genre. Cards from other genres construct their own sense of universe, values, and so on. Do you best to note the patterns meaningful to the genre within which you choose to present yourself.
Your RPW Card is a 2-page document that presents a combination of visual and textual details about your design knowledge, abilities, and vision in genre-inspired ways. Your card doc should incorporate all of the following content elements.
For example, if you present yourself as a UX Designer, is there a way of expanding that title to fit more effectively into a fantasy or sci-fi or horror genre? If you frame your title in terms of purpose or motive (e.g., Design Justice Warrior), this may be less necessary, but could still offer you a source of creativity and amusement.
For example, early in my career, students delighted in reminding me of things I tended to repeat during classes: "there is no such thing as a perfect document"; "it's not a good thing or a bad thing ... it's just a thing." One student even wrote things like these down to post in her work area. Either of these could appear on my own trading card.
For example, if you were to identify web design as a knowledge area, how might you add genre-inspired framing to that? What about qualities such as empathy or advocate?
As you develop the content for your RPW card, strive to meet the following design specifications.
If you have trouble translating the specifications here to design decisions, consult the sample document (see SVSU Canvas Files: Project Support) for additional guidance.
Your project will be accompanied by a memo of transmittal. That category of memo introduces the document it accompanies, providing context for its audience(s). You will craft such a memo for the submission of each stage of the RPW Card project. Your memos should be addressed from you to me.
Your prototype-stage memo should incorporate the following content and design elements.
Your final-stage memo should incorporate the following content and design elements.
Consult the sample documents (see SVSU Canvas Files: Project Support) for additional guidance.
This section is designed to help you anticipate and avoid problems as you work on this project. Therefore, as you work, consider the following hints and tips.
Approach this project as a design strategist. Consider how audience needs and expectations for documents of this type, and how all of the design components coordinate and complement one another. Pay attention to the design specifications you have been given to work with. Because authenticity of experience is a goal for connecting with genre standards, strive to meet the expectations established in the specifications and to craft an authentic trading card design.
Remember that communication in professional and technical contexts values highly the ability to write and speak with economy, directness, and professionalism. Another way of saying this is to make every word count. Stay focused on the details necessary to communicate effectively with your audience(s). Write and rewrite until your textual content makes sense and represents careful, concise, professional communication.
Edit carefully, seeking to express your ideas clearly and concisely. Edit out loud with the intent of writing in such a manner that your sentences sound professional and focused. Work to meet the design specs. Scrutinize your work so it is consistent, professional, and quality. Refine your document continuously throughout the stages of development.
The revisions and refinements you make as you prepare your submission may help you understand your design process, and therefore your professional development in more-sophisticated ways. Archive your prototype of this project and of your final submission when it is ready, so you are able to examine your growth and maturation as you progress through the program you are in.
Read and attend carefully to these submission guidelines. Failure to do so may result in points lost on the final evaluation of your project.
Create a folder for this project inside your shared class folder on Dropbox.com. Remember, I can only view files that you place inside the shared folder. Until you place files in that space, you have not in practice submitted them.
Name the folder RPW Card.
Note. Do not share this folder with me. By placing it in your class folder, you have already shared it by default.
Make sure the files listed below are available to me in the project folder by the project deadline. Model your filenames on the listed examples:
Note. Do not share the individual files with me. By placing them in your project folder, you have already shared them by default.
Make sure the files from your prototype submission and those listed below are available to me in the project folder by the project deadline. Model your filenames on the listed examples:
Note. Again, do not share the individual files with me. By placing them in your project folder, you have already shared them by default.
This section describes the standards by which your prototype and final submissions will be evaluated.
There are 50 possible points for the prototype stage of this project. You will earn points according to the following standard.
The final project submission is worth 200 possible points. You will earn points according to the standard described on the policies page (see Policies for a description of these categories).
The specific areas of emphasis for the RPWC project are drawn from this description and our discussions of the project (including the supporting teaching materials that I provide to you along the way). Review the project rubric (_Eval_RPWCard.pdf) for the specific qualities and characteristics emphasized in each evaluation category.
Remember that I will only post the point values for projects on the Grades page in SVSU Canvas. I will provide the supporting details relevant to that evaluation in your class folder in a project-specific file. Look for a Microsoft Word file in your shared class space on Dropbox with a filename that that follows this pattern:
YourLastName_Eval_RPWCard.docx.
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