Playing is Learning
Playing is Learning started as a collaborative project involving The Iowa Children's Museum, The Delta Center, and graduate students from both the design and psychology departments. The goal of the project was to introduce the concept that play is crucial in early childhood development. A gaming system was developed and introduced through out the museum to help both children and parents alike. After being displayed at The Iowa Children’s Museum, the project grew and was developed for the Iowa City Public Library, where I worked as the sole freelance designer on the design and production.
Credits-Playing is Learning at The Iowa Children’s Museum:
Project Supervisors: Brad Dicharry and John Spencer
Playing is Learning Logo Design and Child Cards: Leslie Mock
Card and Poster Designs: Andrew Desforges
Icon Designs: Griffin Van Dyke
Credits-Playing is Learning at The Iowa City Public Library:
Project Supervisors: John Spencer
Icon, Cards, Posters, and Display Design: Leslie Mock
Logo Development
When developing the logo, I started sketching everything that came to mind. I took some initial sketches and moved those to vector, feeling out colors and feel. I asked for feedback from fellow designers and my initial vector renderings were rejected. A fellow designer looked at my sketches and asked me about this sketch I had of a little kid holding a pencil. I wouldn’t have thought anything of it if he didn’t point it out. I sketched more from there and then went to vector render my sketch. I played with type, finessed the kid, and had what I thought was a final logo. After doing a feedback review with parents at the Children’s Museum, they expressed that the logo didn’t really match or inspire the tagline “playing is learning.” They expressed that a child holding a pencil wasn’t really playful. I took the feedback and changed it to the child riding the pencil like a rocketship. I also added a helmet to address other feedback to ensure the child did not lean towards any gender so all kids felt they could see themselvs in this logo. I valued every single criticism, collaboration, feedback, and critique during this process. It would not have allowed me to achieve this logo.
Icons
Icons were important to this initiative as they were used to identify the key areas of playing and development. These icons were used on signs and playing cards. The bottom 15 icons were developed for the Iowa Children’s Museum and the top 8 icons were developed for the Iowa City Public Library.
Playing Cards
The playing cards were an interactive element. It encouraged parents to collect cards at each area. Each card was a helpful take away that educated parents on developmental areas and provided at home activity ideas to play with their child. The full deck of cards were also available for purchase at the gift store.
Signs and Installations
Throughout the Children’s Museum and Iowa City Public Library were large signs that had facts and play ideas. There were corresponding cards that parents and kids could grab as well. In addition to these signs, there were other elements such as stamps you could stamp your play passport with, signs that described the Playing is Learning initiative, and other playful informative signs like puzzle pieces, and a photo opportunity cut out.
