Evolutionary Games Infographic Project launches with its first release of graphic packages

In the Fall of 2011 I began a new project with Greg Riestenberg, a graduate student in Pratt’s Communications Design program. Given the ubiquity — especially in recent times — of evolutionary game theory, you would think that someone would have produced a set of clear conceptual images depicting how the most important of these games work; however, based on our research, it appears that no one has. Looking to fill this clear need, Greg and I set out to produce a series of ‘infographics‘ representing evolutionary games.

The goals of the project have been to:

1. Develop a ‘visual vocabulary’ that can be used to depict and compare a diverse variety of evolutionary games;
2. Depict the dynamics of the most commonly-explored theoretical and experimental evolutionary games without the explicit use of mathematics;
3. Connect conceptual depictions of evolutionary games to depictions of real-world applications of these games; and
4. Make these images freely available for inclusion in lectures, publications, and websites.

After two semesters of hard work, we are proud to announce the release of the first set of graphic packages. These packages have been released on this site and on Wikimedia Commons so that anyone can use them in lessons, presentations, and even publications (for free!). They are licensed under the CC BY-SA license provided by Creative Commons, which only requires that users of these images attribute them and share any derivative work under the same license. Our hope is that these images will be adopted widely and used in a variety of teaching settings. I will continue to use them in my Evolution of Cooperation course and plan to use them extensively as I develop my Online Cooperative Resource.

As we finish up this project and release this extensive collection of educational infographics, it is appropriate to do a little celebrating. And no one deserves to be celebrated more than Greg, whose tireless creative work was the driving force behind this project. I have been continually impressed not only with Greg’s very innovative and exacting graphic design work, but also with his ability to absorb and process subject matter that was initially outside of his expertise. Whether or not Greg’s availability to work and my funding align for another semester or two of work, it has been a supreme pleasure to collaborate with him. If you need really high-quality graphic design work, Greg can be found at www.gregrie.net.