The first of The KEYS ⨺ 16(32) prototypes (KEYS 2 and 3) were created last night in a creative frenzy. A video was uploaded too. Inspired by the latest new pieces for The SOLVE ⨺ 18(36) and COAGULA ⨺ 27(54) Sets which looked so beautiful, I couldn't resist moving forward into the other sets. The result was fascinating and contained revelations for The 16 KEYS moving forward. Because there are only 4 cards of the same color necessary for the entire 144 card system, there was extra room on each colored sheet of cardstock to do something else. As you can see in the photos here, I had placed the two hand painted prototypes of these designs into a diamond configuration on my wall, just as the coloring and visual design had called for pairing of certain cards. For the sake of my wall decoration, I decided to join the two triangular designs of KEYS 2 and 3 together into a unified piece that I could put on my wall to replace the dull-colored, rough paintings. The result was so powerful that I realized it would be perfect for the version of The 16 KEYS which is not part of The 7 of 9. And so I went forward with altering the design for a larger format, joining the two glyphs together and rounding all the corners. It took a long time to prepare all that in Adobe Illustrator, but I was happy knowing that this would allow The 7 of 9 to work as a battery for the rest of the UNITY LIFE resources, as it has been doing in many ways.
I had been wanting to likely present The 16 KEYS in a separate format from The 7 of 9 anyway, anticipating that as the resource develops, there will be 2 distinct variations of how this information is best presented. Since these concept models have historically always hinged on my personal story of witnessing mindblowing miracles of great scale, I anticipated that these personal accounts would eventually be best presented in a separate format from The 7 of 9. While my own stories are wonderful examples that could shed light on the importance of these ideas — and will be noted of to some degree anywhere The 16 KEYS is presented — the 7 of 9 is going to be emphasizing encouragement of the players to come up with their own storytelling of fictional and non-fictional narratives based on game play. So as to not overemphasize my own experiences in The 7 of 9, I knew another format would be called for, along with another section for the tool on the website. These diamonds were the answer.
As you can see, there were two varations. If you look closely at these two, you can see that the second one has rounded corners, while the first has sharp corners. I found that the small 7 of 9 cards looked perfect with these sharp corners in that sizing, but in a large format, it looked way too computerized. Rounding the corners made for a great result, but after sleeping on it and looking at them more, I'm considering rounding the corners even more for them all, before I move on with the other 14 triangular and 7 diamond-shaped designs in this series. As well, this has inspired me to round the corners dramatically for the upcoming Set in The 7 of 9, currently called UNNAMED 12(24). I think a more organic and very rounded look would create the type of novelty I'm seeking in this distinct other set.
That set is already planned out and partially written (well composed in my mind) but has remained semi-secret so far. It's an exciting plan to release it as a pseudo-surprise, complete with a fascinating story of why it was kept secret which models one of The 9 Strategies of The COAGULA. That said, it will take quite a bit of work before I'm able to break the secret and reveal it, and I'm starting to feel very pensive that it needs to happen as soon as possible. That's why I'm aiming to race through completing a chunk of these designs for The KEYS 16(32) and The 16 KEYS just enough so that I can skip ahead to The UNNAMED Set.
I captured some really nice works in progress imagery of the creation. As the rest of this first chunk of work (at least) is completed for this set, I'd like to return to this entry and add more photos and notes as they come along.
As you can see, these images show some of the tools I've been working with on these. I found that a nail file would work to smooth off some of the minor issues I've had with cardstock tearing on the edges occasionally. I mainly use the scissors for weeding, and sometimes snipping off tears. This hasn't been too time consuming really.
As well, you can see here a casual layout of 18 cards in 9 diamond shapes to simulate the layout on the final 7 of 9 game mat. I noticed that the overall sizing is convenient for most table space at home, yet exceeds typical sizing of most regular formats such as this mat. I'm still very much unsure of what format the final game mat should be in. I have so many questions in my mind about it. At the moment, I'm thinking about buying a yard of gold velvet and simply using that — easily accepting that without printed outlines to support aligned placement, it will still look amazing. However, I've often considered that having shaped grooves of some kind in the mat would make for a satisfying experience of laying the cards neatly for a game. I can't exactly imagine how I would produce something like that — even just for myself — right now. But I'm constantly brainstorming ideas. My dye cutter is not big enough to do that with cardstock.
It would be nice if the game mat was just fabric as you could wrap your cards in it — but I'm already thinking a zipper pouch would be better. I've enjoyed filing my cards in adorable ziplock bags inside a zipper pouch, and I find filing organization this way to be the most secure and easy to work with. It's nice knowing that piles of cards laying around won't be knocked over and lost under the furniture. But as for a game mat, I'm torn between a more lush fabric such as velvet, or another type of textile which can be printed on. If I did print on fabric for the mat, I'd make it into a square and decorate it with a well designed title, similar to some of the formal plates I've created for The 16 KEYS and The 64 CARDS. I find this type of rhombous diamond looks amazing inside a square. The layout you see above on the cutting mat looks pretty imbalanced to me in a rectangle. However, the idea to just get a luxuriously large piece of velvet for it really appeals too. If it was just nice and large, it could look like a gorgeous table cloth and drape really well over any size of desk or table enough so that photos of your 7 of 9 layouts would be guaranteed to have a full, non intrusive background of which the edges is never a garish cut-off line in photos, no matter your photography skills. That seems not only cheaper, but likely more practical for facilitating photo opportunities of storyboard mind maps with these cards.
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