{"id":408,"date":"2020-09-07T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-09-07T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brown-sheep-511001.hostingersite.com\/carla\/?p=408"},"modified":"2022-08-23T22:29:10","modified_gmt":"2022-08-23T22:29:10","slug":"designing-and-content-creation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/2020\/09\/07\/designing-and-content-creation\/","title":{"rendered":"Designing and Content Creation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>You might have noticed that some people only design games and other design games and also make content. There&#8217;s a lot of reasons for this, but it can definitely improve your design skills and be a worthwhile use of your time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Why make content and design board games?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>It&#8217;s made me a better designer; writing things down and putting them into a format that will hopefully teach others means that everytime I do this, the topics really stick. It&#8217;s the same with mentoring or teaching, if you take the time to teach someone else, you&#8217;ll learn the lesson so much more. <\/li><li>It also helps out from a designer perspective, as I&#8217;ve gotten more well known in the industry, which has helped me find more contract work and get more games signed.<\/li><li>If the content you make is on different games, at the very least, you introduce yourself to a bunch of new mechanics and themes and how they interact, which can certainly give you inspiration when you go back to designing. <\/li><li>Giving back to the community is a great thing to do! I&#8217;ve gotten so much help over the years, so I might as well help out where I can.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>How did you decide to create the particular content that you&#8217;re making?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>For me, I&#8217;ve always wanted to write, so that&#8217;s why I have a written version of my content. I also do the game design live chats, which are videos. I did this mostly due to COVID; people were getting used to being stuck inside, so I gave them an avenue to interact with more people in a healthy and safe way. I was taking notes on the interviews for my own benefit, but realized I could make the notes into more of an article format, so you can benefit from the chats in the way you want to; either with the video, audio, or written. This hopefully helps me reach a wider audience and makes the content very accessible. <\/li><li>You should try to do something that comes to you easy or is something that you want to learn. If you&#8217;re passionate about the topic of your content, that will also make it easier to continue. <\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Should you have a goal when making content? What are some possible goals?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Definitely! This can be a personal or overall goal, as having a goal means you&#8217;re more likely to stay motivated and keep up with the blog. You can have a goal that&#8217;s about what you&#8217;re trying to do with the content, how often you want to post, or how much you want to improve or learn. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>One things I really wanted to do with this blog at the beginning is teach people about how to make their games accessible. This is why my first few entries focus on things like making games color blind friendly and also visually accessible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here&#8217;s some of the other goals I have: <\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Write a blog every week for a year. <\/li><li>Get more comfortable with streaming online. <\/li><li>Help highlight great creators in the industry, especially minorities. <\/li><li>Have a backlog of at least a month of posts, just in case anything happens. <\/li><li>Eventually, I&#8217;d love to write enough to be able to put all the content together to be a book. <\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Tips on balancing creating content and working on design<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>It&#8217;s usually better to try to learn and get better at either content creation or design so you&#8217;re not learning everything all at once. When you get to a point where you&#8217;re not learning everything (as you&#8217;re always going to be learning something when you are designing), you can try to start on the other. <\/li><li>Choose a type of content creation that uses a different part of your brain than design, so that if you&#8217;re not in the mood for design, you can work on content creation. <\/li><li>Timebox yourself when you work; you have to write on the blog for the next 45 minutes, then you can take a break. Giving yourself 45-60 minutes is a time when you can get a good amount done, but it&#8217;s not so long that you&#8217;ll get distracted. <\/li><li>You can have days where you focus on either design or content creation. <\/li><li>Try to do something that comes easy to you, whatever it is. I like to do content that reinforces my designs and can inspire me. If you get inspired by writing about certain aspects of games, that&#8217;s a perfect fit for you.<\/li><li>Have days where you focus on each one; like, every Monday is writing time. If you block time off for something and you cant&#8217; do anything else, it makes it so much easier to do the thing you want to.<\/li><li>It also helps that you can do one when you&#8217;re not in the mood for the other. My brain is sometimes super creative, so I do design then, but if I&#8217;m not in the right headspace for design, I might be in a great mood to write.<\/li><li>Get a partner or join a group. I joined Punchboard Media and it&#8217;s more motivating to do content, as I want to add to the great content that they have. Plus, just having a community or help makes things so much easier. Getting a codesigner has certainly helped my design pace be a lot more consistent as well. <\/li><li>Do what is easy. If you love doing videos, do them. You don&#8217;t need to be great to start, so don&#8217;t force yourself to be perfect.<\/li><li>Think about what kind of content can help you make great games.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Create a Community<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Building a community can be great for a variety of reasons. You can really get to know the people that read or watch your content and you can get a lot of motivation by providing the content that they want. You can also make a bunch of great friends along the way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you don&#8217;t know what content to do next, the community will most certainly have a ton of ideas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It just feels better when you&#8217;re doing something for others and when you know that the things you do matter to others. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p>Did you enjoy this entry? Please let me know I\u2019d love to hear what you think and what kind of things you\u2019d like to see from this blog. Feel free to send me an&nbsp;<a href=\"mailto:contact@weirdgiraffegames.com\">email<\/a>&nbsp;or comment with your thoughts!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Don\u2019t forget to sign up for my mailing list, so you don\u2019t miss a post:&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/tinyletter.com\/carlakopp\">https:\/\/tinyletter.com\/carlakopp<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>You might have noticed that some people only design games and other design games and also make content. There&#8217;s a lot of reasons for this,&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":424,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"twitter_4766012646_4766012646":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_wpscppro_dont_share_socialmedia":false,"_wpscppro_custom_social_share_image":0,"_facebook_share_type":"","_twitter_share_type":"","_linkedin_share_type":"","_pinterest_share_type":"","_linkedin_share_type_page":"","_instagram_share_type":"","_medium_share_type":"","_threads_share_type":"","_google_business_share_type":"","_selected_social_profile":[],"_wpsp_enable_custom_social_template":false,"_wpsp_social_scheduling":{"enabled":false,"datetime":null,"platforms":[],"status":"template_only","dateOption":"today","timeOption":"now","customDays":"","customHours":"","customDate":"","customTime":"","schedulingType":"absolute"},"_wpsp_active_default_template":true},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-408","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-design"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/content-creation.png","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":137,"url":"https:\/\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/2020\/04\/04\/when-you-get-stuck-on-a-game-design\/","url_meta":{"origin":408,"position":0},"title":"When You Get Stuck on a Game Design","author":"Carla","date":"April 4, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Sometimes you won't know exactly what to do next on a game. You could use your game design time to think on what to do and it's good to do so, but you don't want to do so for an excessive amount of time. Here's a variety of things that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Game Design&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Game Design","link":"https:\/\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/category\/design\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/Slide8.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/Slide8.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/Slide8.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/Slide8.png?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/Slide8.png?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":490,"url":"https:\/\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/2021\/07\/20\/working-on-multiple-games\/","url_meta":{"origin":408,"position":1},"title":"Working on Multiple Games","author":"Carla","date":"July 20, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"I really enjoy working on multiple games at the same time. As a publisher, this is pretty much required if I want to have more than one game come out every year or so. The process of game design and development can take months, and art can sometimes take even\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Game Design&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Game Design","link":"https:\/\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/category\/design\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/working-on-multiple-games.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/working-on-multiple-games.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/working-on-multiple-games.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/working-on-multiple-games.png?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/working-on-multiple-games.png?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":212,"url":"https:\/\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/2020\/04\/28\/working-on-multiple-games-at-once\/","url_meta":{"origin":408,"position":2},"title":"Working on Multiple Games at Once","author":"Carla","date":"April 28, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Most designers start with one game, then eventually start working on two games at once. Some designers even move on to having 5+ in progress at the same time! There's several great reasons why you should work on more than one game at one time. You can playtest based on\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Game Design&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Game Design","link":"https:\/\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/category\/design\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/Slide4.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/Slide4.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/Slide4.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/Slide4.png?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/Slide4.png?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":926,"url":"https:\/\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/2021\/05\/04\/getting-started-and-pressing-forward-with-game-design-with-raven-mckenzie\/","url_meta":{"origin":408,"position":3},"title":"Getting Started and Pressing Forward with Game Design with Raven McKenzie","author":"Carla","date":"May 4, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Raven is a game designer and is on the Unpub Leadership team. You can watch the interview below: https:\/\/youtu.be\/86X111LdJVA When Raven started with game design, she armed herself with notecards, notebooks, and an idea of what she wanted to do. Her first game design was Macaroon Mania and she initially\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Game Design&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Game Design","link":"https:\/\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/category\/design\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/raven-2-1.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/raven-2-1.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/raven-2-1.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/raven-2-1.png?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/raven-2-1.png?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1006,"url":"https:\/\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/2021\/06\/21\/lessons-learned-from-a-year-of-content-creation\/","url_meta":{"origin":408,"position":4},"title":"Lessons Learned from a Year of Content Creation","author":"Carla","date":"June 21, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"I've been writing in a blog for a bit over the year and I hosted the Game Design Live Chats for a year as well! (The Game Design Live Chats is currently on a hiatus between seasons 1 and 2). This has been the first time that I really focused\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Productivity&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Productivity","link":"https:\/\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/category\/productivity\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/lessons-learned.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/lessons-learned.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/lessons-learned.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/lessons-learned.png?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/lessons-learned.png?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":580,"url":"https:\/\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/2021\/01\/11\/an-introduction-to-designing-and-publishing\/","url_meta":{"origin":408,"position":5},"title":"An Introduction to Designing and Publishing","author":"Carla","date":"January 11, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"When you're a game designer, you have a big choice to make if you want your game published: do you want to pitch the game to a publisher, or do you want to self-publish? Keep in mind that nothing is forcing you to go down either path with each of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Game Design&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Game Design","link":"https:\/\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/category\/design\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/intro-design-and-publishing.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/intro-design-and-publishing.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/intro-design-and-publishing.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/intro-design-and-publishing.png?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/intro-design-and-publishing.png?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=408"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":413,"href":"https:\/\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408\/revisions\/413"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weirdgiraffegames.com\/carla\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}