Visuals
Project Statement
My group members and I decided to focus on the components of a storm: thunder, rain, and lightning as each component corresponds to a bodily sense. Thunder being sound, lightning being sight and rain being touch. We knew that our pieces had to be abstract due to the idea of a storm being abstract! My pieces were based off of the movement and feeling of rain. Using the elements of shape, form and color to represent the ways in which rain is seen through the eyes, whether that be the movement in the way rain falls from the sky and what ways humans interact with water. Rain is a literal thing but it can also be abstract as only the sky has control over when and where it falls. The elements of each piece corresponds to the specific function of it but it is not exactly obvious! Looking at each piece and thinking about what it may represent is all a part of the game for players and I wanted to implement that!
Process
View detailed project process at Checkmate: Process
Reflection
Personally from the beginning I was not a fan of this project. My group and I got the three-way chessboard which made the approach to this design even more challenging and definitely took a ton of communication and brainstorming. Although we had a lot of great ideas, I do think though that our decision to stick with our thunder, rain and lightning theme was for the best because it pushed us to think in ways that maybe none of us had really approach design with. This project definitely came with its challenges as the laser cutter was completely booked up for the rest of the semester and we were scrambling to come up with new ways to construct out pieces. I was excited to make the pieces out of a new material such as wood or chipboard but due to the limitations I stuck with paper and it honestly I think was the better decision. I was able to paint the pieces exactly how I wanted which made them stand out on the board but also work really well with my peers’. I’m still not super confident with my crafting skills but with the last minute changes I think I was able to pull off what I wanted to!