Fall 2019
ABC’s of Symbiosis
We were seperated into two groups of 9 for our Interactive 4 project. We were tasked with creating a ABC book or other print media for children. Our group decided on the concept of pairing up creatures in nature that have symbiotic relationships. A symbiotic relationship is one where both creatures benefit from one another.
The ABC’s of Symbiosis is a matching card game intended for children ages 4 - 12 that helps reinforce cooperation and introduce new and interesting concepts in a learning environment.
The games works by having the teacher hand out one card per student and asking them to find their symbiotic match. Each card pair has a pre-determined color scheme and QR code that helps students find their match. Once connected students can see what each creature does and scan the QR code to learn more about how they interact
Letters were handed out randomly and each person got 3 to create content for. While one person got two cards and the cover to create.
I got the letters S, U, and H. Their pairs go, S is for Sea Cucumber which pairs with Imperial Shrimp. The U is for Sea Urchin which pairs with Carrier Crab. Finally the H is for Human which goes with Bacteria.
These are the initial iterations of each letter. I decided early on to, instead of putting each letter in plain text onto the card, I would use each character as the letter. With the human I makind it in 2D but went to 3D after completing the sea urchin because I liked how cohesive they were looking. Like those fantasy card games whose main illustration is the main image. The sea urchin changed the most, it was an experiement where I first tried adding character to a letter.
Sea Cucumber
This is the final version of the card. For this one I went with a scarier tone to mix things up and give a more fantasy card game vibe to it instead of an more linear art style like Go Fish or UNO.
Human
For each of these cards I also wanted to put them somewhere signature and similar to their pair. So the human is placed in the gym to show that they are healthy just like how the bacteria is helpful to the human.
Sea Urchin
The enviroment for the sea urchin is the sea anenome an area the carrier crab can be found. It also is a great abstraction from where the sea urchin is found.
I do woodworking as a hobby and whenever I go home on breaks I spend all my time working in my lil’ shop. While I was home I made a box for the deck of cards out of leopard wood and bamboo to really complete the project.
