What was the problem?
We were approached by the creator of TIFF, a personal development tool, to produce the graphics for their Functional Fluency Board Game. This involved artwork for the game itself and the packaging. The board game is aimed at adults and is used by trainers. The artwork needed to be simple and colourful to ensure that the board game was both pleasing to look at and stimulating.
The game itself had been designed over a period of ten years. There was a large prototype in chalk on card which had been used in trials. My job was to take this and make it into a professional looking board game ready to take to market
Game board
How did we solve this problem?
In consultation with the game’s designers we needed to find suitable colours for the game, working with the colours that have a meaning within the TIFF programme and finding others that would work with them to make an attractive and usable board.
We needed to take lots of Word documents with game instructions, playing cards and score sheets and prepare them for print. The print was complex and needed careful project management.
Also we had to source pieces for the game and a suitable box, within a tight budget. The box was initially a problem as the trainers would use the game at workshops for 12 people. The game is for four players. Three long boxes would have been difficult to carry along with the other files that would be needed for a workshop. We found somebody to manufacture a board that would fold into four. This would then fit into an A4 box, giving us the opportunity to look at a wider range of available boxes. We decided on a deep A4 plastic box which would hold up to three games securely and would be easy to store and carry.
What happened next?
The game has been released into production and is being used in Germany and The Netherlands as well as the UK. The games creator was so pleased with the outcome end product that she asked me to produce leaflets and booklets for TIFF. This has resulted in other designers approaching me to find printers for their own work on board games.