Finding a Job

I looked around at a couple websites, trying to find a few jobs that I might be interested it. I didn't have anything terribly specific in mind, other than something that focused on writing maybe, but that's pretty broad. That being said, I'm glad that I did stumble upon the ad that I found.

I'm really interested in this position as an Editorial Assistant. It meets my vague requirement of having to do with writing, but a lot of other aspects of the job also interest me. As an aspiring author, I think it'll be great to have an insight into the publishing industry, even if it's not the area I'm aiming to be published in. Also, although I don't have a whole lot of interest in teaching others, I'm concerned about the education in our society. I like reading different bits of research about how kids learn and about the various methods that schools use to become more effective. I think I'd really enjoy working in an environment connected to learning.

Presentation Preparation

Preparing to give a presentation is always work. I was a little wary of this presentation when I was only putting my part together though. When my group spoke in class, and things began to come together, I felt a bit better about it though. Seeing how each section was going to fit together helped alleviate some of my anxiety. And fit together they did. I feel like we did a pretty decent job splitting up the different portions of our presentation, and even though we had to come up with some back up information, things congealed. We talked later in the evening about the completed project and made plans to come in early to look it over together and perhaps do another run through to see where we fall in the time limit. I fear that we might be a bit long, but people tend to talk quickly when they're in front of a class. I'm banking on that happening.

Flyers

A good flyer does a number of things well. It catches the attention of its prospective audience through graphics or immediately arresting text. It causes a reader to think back on it once they've put it down. It doesn't treat its reader like a child, by which I mean it presents information candidly, allowing the reader to make their own decision rather than assuming the decision has already been made. Now, I can't cover all of those things. I'm no professional, and my graphic design sense is terrible. Therefore, until I educate myself a bit more, I tend to focus on words, and I'm getting better placing those appropriately at least. Someday I'll design flyers for my own purposes, and I hope they look decent, but for now, let's practice on something else.

I've been tasked with designing a flyer that will, hypothetically, but used by the admissions office here at BSU. Two pages: one front, one back. What should be included? Let's make a list.

• Images are a must. I think that the front of the flyer will have an image that takes up roughly 2/3 to 3/4 of the page. Overlaid on top of that will be the school's logo, probably focused in one of the corners. There may be text on top of that as well, though not much.
• The rest of the page will be a box, probably white, which will include the most important information:
• Contact information for Admissions to include
• Phone numbers
• E-mail
• Web Address
• Location on campus
• The location of the University, both within MA and on a smaller scale.
• The back of the flyer will more than likely be split into two columns, with information of greater importance listed at the top. In addition, the two columns will probably be split more into academic and extracurricular activities.
• On the left, prominent majors and degrees offered will be listed at the top.
• Below will be internship opportunities.
• Below that will be the availability of disability and tutoring programs.
• I think by this point I may well have filled up the left column. If not, snippets about studying abroad, prominent alumni, and the campus's focus on technology may be included.
• On the right will be things like athletic programs, a sampling of the clubs and organizations on campus, community involvement, and similar items.
• I may leave a space at the bottom, as I did on the other side, where I'll highlight BSU's affordability, access to the commuter rail, various improvements being made to the campus or other things the university is focused on doing.

I think that all that is still a lot of information to pack onto two pages, but who needs margins anyway? (I'm kidding. There will be margins. White space is important too.)

Doc Design

The first draft of the rules for The Deck were, admittedly, hastily put together. I had a general idea of what a rule booklet looked like, but I didn't exactly draw from any specific source. After all, it was a first draft. There would be plenty to come after it. Let's take a look at the first page of the first draft.

I believe I had all the essentials that one would require for such a document, and I suppose that, as far as content was concerned, I was correct. The form, however, leaves something to be desired. The title "The Deck" is centered, Calibri, and 18 points. That's all well and good, but it doesn't stand out much. The entire document is formatted in Calibri, with the only differences being the font size and whether something was bold or underlined. At least I had headings. I did that right. 

There is white space between the different sections, but there's also a huge amount of white space at the bottom of the page. That's because the next section couldn't fit within the space allotted on page 1, so I moved it down to page 2. It seems wasteful. The margins are also the standard 1" from each edge. It is, essentially, an academic document with a little extra formatting. It could be worse, but it could also be a lot better.

Eventually, I got some friends of mine to play the game and brought along that draft. There was a lot of confusion and a lot of people trying to find certain things within the rules, but I chalked that up to a combination of some new and complicated game mechanics and the the writing. When I went through the rules, however, I didn't really find too much that needed adjusting within the writing. Then why were people having such a difficult time reading the rules? It was because of the document.

Let's look at an equivalent amount of the most recent version of the rule book.

Quite a different piece, I believe. The biggest change was in designing the document to be printed double-sided and folded in half to make a book rather than an essay. The title is on the cover, where it belongs, along with an image (the one in this draft will be replaced when a real logo gets designed). It's also much larger (26 point) and in a sans serif font. In fact, all of the headers are now in a capitalized, sans serif font. They jump out more, making each section more clearly defined.

The margins vary around the edges, and are wider toward the middle of the document where it will be folded in half. There is also less white space at the top than at the bottom, focusing readers' attention on the page numbers and initial headers more. The information following the headings is still indented, like in the previous version of the document. The page numbers are missing from the table of contents, but it's still a work in progress. They'll get there in time.

I think that even in just this first page/two pages, a lot of improvement is clear. We'll look at some other stuff next time, so look forward to seeing what else is in store for the most recent version.

What We've Done So Far

To this date, The Deck has grown a lot. At its earliest stage, it only consisted of Hierarchy (a game included in the rules booklet now), and even that was a far cry from what it is today.

Hierarchy was originally intended to be a bluffing game played with numbered cards where the purpose of the game was to capture as many of your opponents cards as possible. It was supposed to be quick and easy, but the concept had been done and done well by plenty of others. Hierarchy quickly turned into the hand building game it is now, where players try to hold onto as many points as they can or build special hands worth a lot of points. Those who have tested it have found it fun, but there are always bugs to work out. Between version 1 and the current version 3, the deck increased from 120 cards to 135 in order to accommodate more special cards for the players to use.  The rules themselves sustained minor changes as well, mostly in the way some of the cards worked.

There was quite a bit of a lull between the play tests of version 1 and 2. It was during this time that the other three games were designed: Castles, Make It Work, and Perpetraitor. Of these three, the first two have been tested a little bit, with no variations to the rules. Personally, I'm excited to see how Perpetraitor will hold up. Even as the creator, I think it's a bit of an odd game, but it has promise.

The biggest bottleneck in the design process right now is play testing. People are busy, so getting a group together with any sort of consistency is nigh impossible at the moment. This is merely within a close group of friends and family however. I have plans to open up testing to a wider audience, but what I'm going to focus on for the time being is less a matter of designing mechanics than it is of design, period. The cards and the rule book have gone through multiple revisions, but they could use a lot more work. You'll be seeing a lot more of that over the following weeks for sure.

-Kurt