My Discovery: Sex Education Card Games
Project Summary
My Discovery is the output of a year-long thesis project. The objective of My Discovery is an educational collection of card games to facilitate children and adolescents an inclusive and positive outlook on sex education.
DURATION: Four Months
PROJECT TYPE: Individual Project
RESPONSIBILITIES: Design Research, Brand Design, Visual Design, Product Strategy, Package Design
TOOLS USED: Figma, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop
The Problem
The gap in the Canadian Sex Education Curriculum
From reviewing various scholarly articles, the quality of the Sex Education Curriculum students receives in Canada varies widely since the decision-making on the curriculum is primarily made by the provincial and territorial education ministries. Their role is to determine what materials to cover in sexual health classes, which topics are appropriate for each age group and define the depth and quality of the content.
As a result...
Canada's Sex Education Curriculum is characterized as inconsistent, outdated, substandard, and inaccurate.
With its taboo nature built around sexual health and political motivation, the sex education curriculum fails to equip students with scientifically accurate and evidence-based information. Furthermore, it fails to touch upon the emotional, social, and physical aspects of sexual health. Since the curriculum frameworks developed at different times, many of them are out-of-date, making it difficult for students to connect to contemporary society.
Additionally, it focuses on risk prevention, including STIs or unplanned pregnancies but in disempowering ways, along with topics centred around heteronormativity. The curriculum fails to address sex positivity and inclusivity. This includes the empowerment to make informed decisions in critical situations, the importance of building and fostering healthy relationships, the enjoyment of pleasure and sexual intimacy, or the identity of gender, expression and sexuality. Therefore, the curriculum has no balance between the risks and positives.
Aside from the curriculum, educators also play a significant role in students' learning outcomes. They often portrayed the curriculum as intimidating, inexpert in navigating the sensitive subject and lacking practical application, which caused students to feel disconnected from the teachers.
Children and adolescents not receiving information from schools that they are most curious about or seek answers to will turn to media outlets to fill in the gaps, as it is the most accessible form. However, it often offers unreliable and biased information or even discovers inappropriate content, such as the entertainment or porn industries. This has contributed to misconceptions about sex and sexuality, which led to alarmingly high results.
Design Challenge
How might I foster open-minded and honest conversations, create an inclusive and comfortable environment and alleviate the stigma associated with sexual health?
Design Strategy
Learning while having an open and honest conversation through play is the key.
A creative strategy I developed is a collection of educational card games called My Discovery. Ultimately, an opportunity for players to break the ice, explore and respect their values and viewpoints, enhance their language, and boost their confidence in discussing sexual health topics while simultaneously discovering themselves. I believe the concept of play enables the shift of fear and awkwardness into curiosity and empowerment with a touch of humour to create a more enjoyable and positive learning experience.
My Discovery: Human Identity
My Discovery: Cards Not Against Sexual Health
My Discovery: Practice Consent
My Discovery: It’s Not Taboo
Visual Identity
Colour Palette:
The light beige tone is used as a soft background colour to draw attention to the illustrations and texts. The five primary colours are vivid and bold for the illustrations and paired with midnight blue for small details for consistency. The secondary palette is for supporting colours- mainly used for background purposes. Lastly, the neutral palette acts as a tertiary element that is sparingly used when needed.
Typography
In terms of typography, I chose a playful and quirky typeface for the logo to reflect the illustrations paired with a rounded and friendly san serif typeface applied for the entire card game application for readability and legibility purposes.
Logo Design
In the logo, the wordmark "My Discovery" represents how the game application would enable children and preteens to learn about the different aspects of sexual health while simultaneously discovering themselves. The consistent use of the logo across all communications enhances market recognition for My Discovery. I chose the Easteria typeface for the logo but made some modifications to tailor the playful and fun spirit of the card games application.
Illustration Style:
The playful illustrations help reduce the serious tone of the topic as discussing sexual health can be sensitive and heavy. Therefore, presenting the card game application appears more light-hearted and approachable.
In my initial research of visual style for the Human Identity card game, I thought of creating LGBTQIA+ symbols or human figures representing each identity, sexuality, and expression. However, I thought symbols would be too complicated to understand, and I was thinking about how I might illustrate a person, for example, as an agender in a human figure? There is no specific image of an agender. Therefore, I created unique and playful characters as this may help children and preteens understand that they cannot judge someone's identity, sexuality, and expression solely based on their appearance. These characters became the signature design as I wanted to maintain consistency with the other card games.
My Discovery Final Product
1. My Discovery- Human Identity:
The Human Identity focuses on LGBTQIA+ vocabulary relating to gender and sexuality. Children and preteens will have a clearer understanding of the importance of language in creating affirming and inclusive environments for LGBTQIA+ individuals. This card game goal is to familiarize the terminology while playing bicycle card games as this provides an enjoyable and engaging way to learn. Also, these cards can be read on their own as flashcards. Additionally, the back card design distinguishes the different components of human identity, including gender identity, sexual orientation, gender expression, biological sex, and pronoun along with its definition.
Human Identity Back Card
Gender Identity Card Set
Sexual Orientation Card Set
Gender Expression Card Set
Biological Sex Card Set
Pronoun Card Set
2. My Discovery- Practice Consent
The Practice Consent aims to teach preteens about consent and how to practice and be prepared in everyday life, particularly in emotional and sexual situations. The game provides a deck of scenario cards, and each player receives a set of response cards as well. One player in the group can draw a scenario card from the deck and read the scenario aloud. Everyone then chooses a response card to the given scenario. Each response card accompanies a meaning behind the response. Since the scenario cards are open to interpretation, each player can discuss their selected response card in an attempt to start a conversation.
Scenarios Card Set
Responses Card Set
A Scenario card with Different Response Cards
Hypothetically, a player may respond with a "Yes" card as they don’t mind taking a photo of them and feel confident in their bathing suit. Another player may answer with a "No" card, as they are uncomfortable with the person taking the photo. Some players may reply "Sure?" or "Uh-huh..." as they are hesitant and unsure what to do in that situation, thus intending to start a conversation to figure out how to go about it.
3. My Discovery- It’s Not Taboo
It’s Not Taboo is based on the traditional Taboo game. The objective of this game is to learn and normalize the use of words regarded as “taboo.” This game covers the terminologies in four categories, which are sexual pleasure and activities, sexual and reproductive anatomy, safe sex and protection, and relationships.
Sexual Pleasure and Activities Card Set
Sexual and Reproductive Anatomy Card Set
Safe Sex and Protection Card Set
Relationships Card Set
4. My Discovery- Cards Not Against Sexual Health
Despite preteens' curiosity about sex, pleasure, intimacy, relationships, and anything else related to sexual health, many of them are afraid to ask questions, or these topics are not addressed in sex education curriculums. The Cards Not Against Sexual Health consists of questions with pre-establish answers to facilitate open and honest dialogue.
Each player draws five cards, reads through the questions, and chooses one that they would like to discuss. Once selected, everyone can throw their card into the middle of where the game is being played. A member of the group volunteers to shuffle the cards to keep them anonymous and read the questions and answers aloud. A player who feels comfortable enough picks an answer from the card that they believe is correct or may offer a different response that isn't listed on the card. There are no right or wrong answers; it strives to start a discussion and explore individuals' values and perspectives.
Cards Not Against Sexual Health Card Set
A hypothetical discussion would be for this question: “How do you define virginity?”
a) “Someone who has never had penis-in-vagina sex.” This response neglects the LGBTQIA+ community as this answer focus on heterosexual people.
b) “Someone who has never had penis-in-vagina sex, oral sex, or anal sex.” This includes different kinds of sexual activities and thus involves all types of people.
c) “Someone who has never experienced having an orgasm.” Someone who has never experienced an orgasm might think they did not lose their virginity as they don’t feel intense pleasure.
d) “It’s the hymen, a thin tissue located at the opening of the vagina that has not been stretched open or torn that may sometimes cause bleeding.” For some women, this may define virginity. But in other cases, some women are born without a hymen or can break caused by non-sexual activities.
e) “It’s any sexual activity you consent to.” It’s when people consent to do anything that is sexually related.
f) “All of the above.” Some players may agree with all or some of the options.
g) “None of the above.” Some players may not agree with any of the answers but bring in their own perspectives.
Package Design
Human Identity Package Design
Cards Not Against Sexual Health Package Design
Practice Consent Package Design
It’s Not Taboo Package Design
