The Cherokee Word Game project was assigned to the Graphic Design I class during spring 2016. The class worked in teams. Each team developed a game concept and designed all of the game components. The limitation was to develop some type of physical card game.

      Some challenges that the teams faced were around issues of not knowing Cherokee, designing the graphics, deciding on a common graphic style, sharing and organizing the digital files. Furthermore, each member of the team had different skill sets and that was really a problem when creating images. Some members of the teams used bitmapped images while others used vector images as required.

Near the end of the spring 2016 semester, the Graphic Design 1 class visited the Cherokee Central High School in Cherokee. Each of the four design teams presented their games to the Cherokee language faculty.

      During the spring 2016 semester, the Graphic Design 1 class visited the Cherokee Central High School in Cherokee. Each of the four design teams presented their games to the Cherokee language faculty.

During the fall 2016 semester, a capstone management class at WCU did the Market Feasibility Study for the games. Members of the design teams met with the management students to discuss what the objectives of the games and what we anticipated doing with the games.

      As a result of the collective feedback received, two of the four games were selected to move forward and to be revised: a card game title, “What Are You Doing?” and a board game titled, “The Store.”

Graphic Design Professors Jon Jicha and Mary Anna LaFratta, and graphic design student, Hannah Faub have been responsible for most of the revisions in design and are working with Dr. Hartwell Francis, Founding Director of the Cherokee Language Program, to refine the game instructions.

Graphic design student, Sarah Cook, developed this to website to document our work on the Cherokee Word Game Project.

We have received feedback on the games from students, faculty and tribal members in Cherokee, as well as from Adrienne Smith, Director of the imagiNATIONS Activity Center at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian.