ZACK MITCHELL

This board game questions what we value. The “L” Stands for Value is a collaborative game where all players work together to build a new society based on good values. Meanwhile, corruption lurks around every corner. Can you defeat corruption before it’s too late? As a designer who has always had a fascination for the interactive, my final design solution is the board game, The “L” Stands for Value. I was excited to create a hands-on, real object that took us away from our screens and brought us together around a table. Learning about subliminal messaging has aided in my understanding of what people look for and how people process hand-held items. This meant that materials were extremely important. The higher the quality of the materials, the more value we place on it. Things that have weight we tend to believe has more substance and thus is worth more. Things that feel soft or smooth we find to be of a higher quality. As mentioned previously, using currency design in conjunction with board game design, my thesis project employs the most effective ways of reshaping one’s thoughts and feelings. Each piece of this board game was scrutinized from the initial sketch to the final product. In the end, this board game houses some of the strongest identities and subtle nuances to create an impact on the players and to shift what it is we value from self-serving to cooperative. Additionally, using materials that have that high quality feel—the high-end paper for each card, the stained glass squares with their holographic casing—adds to the effectiveness of this subliminal messaging that I am attempting to use for good, as opposed to evil. So why the title? Our values today are nonsensical, and so I wanted a title that was just as nonsensical. I remembered a slogan from a tv show called “Malcolm in the Middle”. The supermarket in the show was called “Lucky Aide” and their slogan was “The ‘L’ stands for value”. It made absolutely no sense, so it was perfect!