ToeShamBo
ToeShamBo is a card/board game that combines two classics–tic-tac-toe and rock, paper, scissors (also commonly known as roshambo).
SERVICES
Game Systems, Logo Design, Character Design & Illustration, Print Collateral, Packaging Design
The Systems
When I sat down to design the look and feel of ToeShamBo I started with what systems would work best. I played with a few different color schemes but ultimately landed on orange and blue as the primary colors for the different teams to accommodate color blindness and teal, magenta and yellow as the secondary colors used for the accents and specifying rock, paper and scissors when necessary. The symbols came to me relatively easily as I had already established the idea of using an X and an O as these are the symbols used in tic-tac-toe. Once I decided it made the most sense for these to visually represent scissors and rock respectively, I kept it simple and decided to use a square to symbolize paper.
EARLY ICON CONCEPTS
EARLY CARD CONCEPTS
The Characters
The characters were undoubtedly the toughest part of the design process. Initially trying to create more static, literal representations of the rock, paper and scissors was proving difficult to get the look I wanted for the audience we were targeting, so I pivoted to creating characters that would be colorful and attractive to children but also entertaining and funny for adults. After trying a few different concepts, I eventually landed on the idea to create a different character for each team that had its own distinct personality. I also visually reiterated the game of roshambo by making each character have at least one hand displaying their respective hand gesture–for example, the rock characters throwing fists and the scissors characters throwing two fingers out.
FINAL CHARACTER & CARD DESIGNS
The Logo
Early concepts of the ToeShamBo logo all centered around the idea of putting the letters in a 3x3 grid to reflect the tic-tac-toe aspect of the game. The two main problems I had with this approach was the lack of rock, paper, scissors visual representation and the readability of “Sham,” as the “m” was always forced to come down a line to fit into the grid. Once I decided to abandon the grid and go to a more illustrative approach everything started to fall into place. I replaced letters in ToeShamBo with visual representations of rock, paper and scissors and used X’s and O’s as accents to reference tic-tac-toe.
CONCEPT 1
CONCEPT 2
FINAL CONCEPT
The Packaging
The goal with the packaging was to create a look that was attractive to kids but also approachable by adults as our target audience was rather large. Referencing some modern cartoons, my approach was to combine the illustrative logo and characters with a photographic, realistic background, giving it an almost augmented reality look and something that young kids would gravitate towards. The simple, clean look of the photographic background mixed with the dark tic-tac-toe pattern helped keep the attention on the logo and illustrations.
SELL SHEET
The Print
Two main print pieces were needed for ToeShamBo–the instructions and the sell sheet. For the sell sheet, the goal was straightforward: Visually show the game’s character and create interest by succinctly describing it. As the physical copy of the game had not yet been printed I created digital 3D mockups of the box and cards for the sell sheet. I tried to limit the amount of copy and explain things with as many visual elements as I could. It turned out well so I took a similar approach for the instruction manual. I used contrasting color, visual elements and clean typography to help create a sense of how easy to pick up and play ToeShamBo really is, especially for young children.
INSIDE OF RULES BOOK
