Product design students at Columbia College Chicago, an arts and media school, had the opportunity to design a game for Marbles: The Brain Store.

Marbles: The Brain Store sells games, but these games are different from the typical Monopoly and Pictionary. Marbles’ games and puzzles strive to promote brain health, according to a Jan. 17 article in Columbia College Chicago’s newspaper, the Columbia Chronicle. The chain store has 18 locations throughout Illinois, New Jersey, Minnesota, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts.

Marbles approached Columbia College Chicago in summer 2011 about a possible collaboration with the school, said Kevin Henry, associate professor of product design. Design schools often collaborate with outside companies, he said.

‘We go through a negotiation process where we try to make sure that it is going to be a win-win for everybody,’ Henry said. ‘We have to be careful that our students don’t feel like they are being exploited.’

When approached by a company to do a collaborative project, professors must determine if there will be a class that is a good fit for the company’s objectives. For this project, an advanced product studio that involved an outside company and a strong research component, seemed to be a good fit, Henry said.

‘If a company is really ready to go, we’ll look at the courses we have scheduled,’ Henry said. ‘We spend months crafting this thing to make sure that we hit all the learning objectives and that the students get a good experience.’

The class of product design majors was divided into seven groups of two that would each brainstorm ideas for their own games. Students spent the semester working on their games, according to a press release from Columbia College Chicago. Teams also had a budget of about $250 to create their games, Henry said.

The winning game selected is called Colorfall and was designed by product design students Brad Hoffman and Chrissy Quinlan. Colorfall, as well as the second and third place winners, will begin production to be sold in Marbles stores by early 2012, according to the press release.

Colorfall is played by setting up different colored tiles in certain patterns, following a similar format to paint-by-numbers. When the tiles are placed correctly, they form designs such as a sailboat or the Eiffel Tower, according to a Jan. 27 article published in the Chicago Sun-Times.

This project allowed students to get an idea of a real-life scenario in product design, Henry said.

‘Students didn’t always understand the perspective of marketers and the company that wants to a sell a product at the end of the day,’ he said. ‘They may have this great idea, but the client might think it’s too expensive or too complicated. Students have an opportunity to go back and forth and refine their projects, and through that, they are getting more in touch with the reality of the marketplace.’

Henry said he believes Columbia College Chicago’s venture with Marbles was a success and would consider partnering with the store again in the future.

‘We’d probably wait a couple of years before doing another project (with Marbles) again because it wouldn’t be fresh for the students,’ Henry said. ‘But if we waited a few years, new students would come in, and they wouldn’t be influenced by past projects. That’s when it works.’

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Published on February 8, 2012 at 12:00 pm

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