Ahoy friends! I’m excited to announce that I’ll be presenting at the 2022 SPE South Central conference, Come Together, taking place Oct. 14-15 in Shreveport, LA.

I’ve been a member of SPE since 2010 and am super pumped to get to share my thesis research with my favorite photography group. I’ve exhibited work at SPE but this will be my first time presenting so that is also super exciting. I don’t know the exact date and time of my presentation yet but below you can find the title and a bit of information regarding my session.

Game-Based Learning: Building Competence in Visual Literacy Through Simulation

Game-based learning is a growing academic practice that encourages the use of games and gamification to engage students and improve retention. This presentation will include an introductory talk on game-based learning and the development of Lumen, a card game designed to prepare students for photographic discussion and critique, followed by the opportunity to play Lumen with fellow attendees.

Lumen is a card game designed to serve as an icebreaker and a teaching tool for introductory photography students. The game introduces players to professional terminology useful in critique and discussion, while also encouraging critical thinking, debate, and analysis.

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Creating the Terminology Deck

I began by brainstorming terms for the terminology deck from my own experience with photography and critique, then combed through photography glossaries and textbooks for additional terms. I tried to find a good balance between technical terms that weren’t so specific it would be nearly impossible to have a relevant image and a variety of descriptive and interesting words for players to interpret. Once I looked through multiple dictionaries and textbooks to find the definitions that help most relevant for photographic discussion and critique. Finding and choosing definitions was a bit difficult at times because a lot of photographic term definitions can’t be found in standard dictionaries.

Due to production restraints my terminology deck was limited to 70 cards.

Creating the Photo Deck

For the photo deck, I initially thought about using my own photography and that of people I know but quickly realized I did not have time to do and complete my project in time for my MFA thesis show so I curated images from pexels.com, a free stock photography site. To select my images I began by searching my terms and searching ideas inspired by my terms and I just saved anything that popped out at me. Once I had about three hundred images collected I began the process of curating them down to the exact number I would need (180). I tried to make sure there were at least two or more super relevant images for each term card while also ensuring there was a large variety of images in both style and subject matter.

Production Limitations

I knew at the beginning that Lumen would work best if it had about 500 cards or more with about a 1 to 4 ratio of terms to images but my first prototype was limited by both time and production options. I wanted a professionally printed game for my MFA thesis exhibition so I had to limit the content of my game to what I could find and have produced in time for my show. Finding printers for standard size playing cards wasn’t very difficult but cards did have to be ordered in certain quantities. Finding packaging for my game was the more challenging aspect and I ended up having to limit the size of Lumen to a standard sized deck box which was only capable of holding 250 cards.

Normally you probably wouldn’t worry about this until after playtesting but I was on a time crunch so I had to make sure I was creating a game I could actually have created in time for my MFA show.

Asset Creation

InDesign was the most efficient software to use for the creation of the playing cards since there were going to be so many. InDesign is a page layout software that excels in multi page documents and text formatting. For my terminology deck I was able to quickly create a template and set up paragraph styles (text formatting shortcuts) to have full control over the design of the cards and be able to quickly make updates to the 70 cards that make up the deck. I also used InDesign to create the photo cards. I just had to make sure that the photos were able to extend over the edge for a full bleed print without ruining the photo composition.

Lumen’s logo, card backs, rulebook, and packaging were all designed in Adobe Illustrator.

Early Prototypes & Playtesting

When creating a game it’s important not to put too much work into the prototype until after you’ve playtested the game and know it works well and doesn’t need to be altered. My first few prototypes were self-printed on copy paper, hand trimmed, and not particularly pretty. One challenge I encountered while creating Lumen was the pandemic. It was a bit difficult to playtest Lumen while everyone was quarantining so I was initially only able to playtest it with my husband and a friend that was staying with us. Later on when people felt more comfortable I was able to test it with slightly larger groups composed of friends and family. It would have been ideal to playtest it with the target audience before finalizing this version of the game but enough playtesting was done for me to feel confident in it’s current form.

Sourcing a Professional Prototype

Production considerations heavily influenced the design of the Lumen. It’s fairly easy to find companies that can create custom playing cards but finding packaging is a bit more of a challenge. I ended up limiting the amount of cards in Lumen based on a standard box size I found with a different company. I ordered the cards from boardgamesmaker.com, the box from printplaygames.com, and I self-printed the instruction booklet.

I wasn’t able to test how Lumen performed with larger groups until after pandemic lightened so I originally guessed it would work well for 3-6 players. I’ve since had the opportunity to playtest Lumen at my MFA show, quite a few game nights, and in over half a dozen photography and design classes, each with multiple groups. I’ve been happy to learn Lumen works well for up to 8 players, with 5-6 being the ideal game size. I originally wanted to create a game that the entire class could play at once but upon observation I think it’s better to divide classes into smaller groups for a more personal experience.

Lumen works well as is but after getting to play it in several classes with larger groups I’ve decided to add at least 100 more photo cards and make a few changes to the packaging that I did not have time to do before. This means it’s going to take a bit longer to make the game available but I think it will be worth the extra wait.

When I first created Lumen I wasn’t really thinking about trying to publish the game but the responses to it have been so great I’m doing my best to see if I can make it available at an affordable price. I’m currently working on a GameCrafter version that will be expensive but will at least make the game available for purchase by schools and any of y’all that just can’t live without it right now. But I have hopes of possibly doing a Kickstarter or small batch run of the game early next year if I can find an affordable manufacturer for small runs.

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The Society for Photographic Education is ‘the leading forum for fostering the understanding of photography in all its forms’ and is essentially THE photography conference for educators and students. It’s a wonderful community that I’ve had the pleasure of being a part of since 2010, and it’s the perfect community for my game Lumen. I’m excited to talk about game-based learning and hopefully inspire others to give it a try either by using games in their classrooms or by creating their own, but I’m also super pumped to share Lumen with SPE. Lumen was created with photography students and professors in mind so I can’t wait to see the response from my target audience. I’m also super pumped to share Lumen with my SPE friends because for years I’ve been trying to figure out how to weave together my graphic design and photography skills and this is a project that definitely does that.

The 2023 SPE Annual Conference will be March 16-18, 2023 at the Sheraton Denver Downtown in Denver, Colorado. The schedule hasn’t been posted yet but you can find out more information on the SPE 2023 Homecoming Conference page.

Here’s the title and description for my teaching & learning workshop.

Game-Based Learning: Building Competence in Visual Literacy Through Simulation

Game-based learning is a growing academic practice that encourages the use of games and gamification to engage students and improve retention. This presentation will include an introductory talk on game-based learning and the development of Lumen, a card game designed to prepare students for photographic discussion and critique, followed by the opportunity to play Lumen with fellow attendees.

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When creating a game you usually start with either a theme or one or more mechanics. For Lumen I started with a problem I wanted to tackle and then narrowed the subject down to determine my theme.

Choosing a Problem to Tackle

Critique and interaction with peers is a super important part of art/design education, but it’s often a source of anxiety for many students. I think there are very few students who don’t suffer from some degree of anxiety or nervousness when they’re asked to pin their work to a wall and have it examined and dissected in front of a group. It’s a process that is always tough at first but the more you do it the easier it gets and hopefully everyone eventually realizes the value and importance of critique.

Critique is one of the most valuable and helpful experiences for growth as an artist/designer so it was important to me to try to help my students become comfortable with it which also meant helping them become more comfortable with one another. I taught several classes at JSU and it was always a struggle to get students to put down their phones and interact with one another. As an educator, one of my goals is to help my students engage and hopefully form relationships with fellow students to help aid both their professional and social development so getting them to engage with one another was just as important to me as the content I was delivering.

Games, especially table-top games, are a great way to help students relax and engage with one another. They are great at helping shy and socially anxious students feel more comfortable because games provide a clear framework for interaction. There are usually rules, guidelines for interaction, and clear objectives or goals that help players engage with one another in a fairly low-stress scenario. There’s also usually a bit of friendly competition which can help to create an engaging and fun experience.

Figuring Out Suitable Mechanics

When I started brainstorming ideas for my thesis project I knew I wanted to create a game that would help prepare students for critique while also serving as a fun ice breaker, but it took me a while to figure out what mechanics and format might work best to achieve my goals. I thought out several different systems which were at first way too complicated. It was important to me that the game be fairly simple, easy to understand, and quick to play so that it would be as beginner friendly as possible.

To help with critique I decided to focus on vocabulary and image analysis/interpretation so adopting game mechanics similar to Apples to Apples and Cards Against Humanity but with terms and images instead of just words and phrases turned out to be the perfect formula. It also helped that a lot of people are already familiar with the mechanics of these games which helps reduce the amount of time required to jump in and get started.

Narrowing My Subject (Theme)

After figuring out the mechanics for the game the next challenge was deciding what subject to focus on, and what terminology and images to use. I originally planned to create a game for art and design students but that was too broad and would require a more complicated set of images. It takes a long time to design and playtest a game and I was on a deadline for my MFA exhibition so I decided to focus on photography for personal and practical reasons. Photography is my primary creative outlet. It’s also much more specific that art and design, but most importantly I knew I’d be able to find a variety of relevant image assets for it thanks to stock photography sites. I would have liked to of included work by myself and my friends and peers in my first version but that would have required too much time so the first version of Lumen was curated completely from pexels.com. Now that my MFA requirements are complete I’m excited to have the time to refine Lumen and add some of my own work and that of friends and peers.

The theme of Lumen is photography, however most of the terminology is also relevant for art and design. Lumen has been play-tested in several Introduction to Design classes in addition to photography classes, and the instructors all reported positive engagement from their students. One of the instructors loved their students reaction to the game so much they asked to borrow it the following semester to help serve as a fun icebreaker at the beginning of the semester for a new group of design students.

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