Task 3 & 4: Design Outcome

Issue

This project addresses the road construction in Bijarim forest, Jeju Island, South Korea. The construction is aiming at widening a 2 lane road as well as preparing for increase in traffic if the second airport is constructed. However, the environmental affect of this construction is considerable.

Thus, this project aims to brand and unify the movement against the construction as a tied campaign. Some of the ways attempted to attain this goal was by choosing a set color scheme, font, and a mascot.

 

Deliverable 1: pamphlet

Deliverable 1 is a pamphlet that can handed out on streets or placed on doors or in mailboxes.

The inside has 4 sections.

      1. Front and back cover
        Introduces the mascot and tagline ‘Not Your Tycoon Game’.
      2. About
        Introduction to the issue of Bijarim road expansion. A neutral tone is used.
      3. Why care?
        Breakdown of the detrimental affects on the environment. Icons are used for easy understanding.
      4. How to care?
        Leads the viewers to the 2nd deliverable. A way for caring and taking part in the movement will be taking part in the protest. To assist in this, a protestor starter kit is provided

Once opened up fully, the back of the pamphlet reveals a full sized version of the mascot on the cover. This can be incorporated as a poster or placard.

 

Deliverable 2: protestor starter kit

To perk the interest of the public as well as to help have a unified movement, the 2nd deliverable is a protestor starter kit.

Two different packaging were created.

    1. Package / Bag
      This package can be used as a bag once the user has made two holes on the side and thread anything through it. It is a compact size that allows the user to carry essentials such as their phone or small snacks.
    2. Package /  Placard
      This package outer surface is designed as a placard. The flat surface of the opening flap of the package allows it to stand on its own like a calendar. Thus, the placard design can be shown on display. At the same time, its perforated edges allows the user to tear out the placards. This placard has back and front. During the protest, protestors can flip the placard back and forth according to the speaker’s instructions.
       

Both packaging contains the same content inside:

    1. Mask
    2. Instructions
    3. Keychain 

 

Reflection

A test print would have proved effective especially since both deliverables (pamphlet and packaging) was meant for physical interaction by the user.

Some possible future developments for this project includes making a summer protestor starter kit. Considering the climate of a hot summer, a fan or sun cap could be useful additional or handouts on the street to promote the cause. In addition, as pointed out by professor Michael, the first version of the  protestor starter kit could produce sound as a percussion instrument.

Worksheet: Reflection on Role Playing as a Research Technique

Briefly share your experience going through Dialogue in the Dark. What were some of the feelings, thoughts, challenges and insights gained while role playing a blind person?

Dialogue in the Dark allows visitors to go through the world visually challenged. This helped us be more aware of different senses like texture, sounds, smells, and so on.

Before going into the exhibition, we were asked to do a puzzle. One person will be blindfolded and the partner has to describe where to place the puzzle piece. Halfway through the activity I realized my partner does not have an overall image of what is on the puzzle or how many pieces were needed. I have overlooked the fact that she would want a general idea of what the puzzle would be like.

The exhibition included getting to try ordering and eating in a cafe in the dark. It stuck with me how the clerk described the cookie as palm size. In the light we would have been able to see the cookie and estimate the size. This helped me realize that detailed descriptions for visualizing an object is important for the visually challenged.

One of the questions I always had in mind was what is the best way to describe a scenery to someone who is visually challenged. Another related concern was how would I describe color. After going through the exhibition, I realized I could translate the visual experience into other sensations. For example, red could be explained as eating spiced on a hot sunny day.

 

Drawing on your experience, can you think and list some of the benefits inherent in the design research technique of role playing?

The biggest benefit that comes from role playing is how it can give you perspective. By placing yourself in the shoes of the user, you can experience it the way it was intended to be.

The exhibition really helped me gain perspective on what it was like to be visually challenged. For instance, there was an activity where we had to cross a road. The tactile paving and beeping from the traffic light helped us know where the road starts and when we can start crossing. Despite being a simulation it was still terrifying because I could not know how long the crosswalk is nor how many seconds I had to cross. It would be great if the traffic light could count the seconds and give the length of the crosswalk along with an estimate average number of steps it would take a person to cross it. Without the role playing in the exhibition, I would not have been able to attain this perspective.

 

Can you think of some contexts where role-playing can be useful to help discover and define design challenges or contribute to the development of design solutions?

Adding on to the idea that role playing allows users to get a fresh perspective, a context where role-playing would be helpful is the refining of a product development. A product is made to bring convenience. Thus, it should be easy and intuitive to use for everyone. ‘Everyone’ will mean taking into consideration different growth backgrounds, different body sizes and shapes, and so on. Role-playing will help designers to take into consideration various users and create appropriate features accordingly.

Another instance would be user experience in digital media (websites or apps), packaging, and even exhibitions. For example, Apple takes great care into the consumer’s experience when they unpack their products to the extent where they have a devoted to opening hundreds of prototype boxes. Their effort pays off because most consumers are unable to throw away the Apple packaging boxes. Role-playing is crucial in exhibition designs because every factor including lights or way the audience is allowed to interact with the space matters.

Task 1A: Exploring the What, Why, Who, and How

W1. What are some of the current issues confronting our world today? Amongst them, what is of interest and a cause of concern to you?

Superficial Sustainability

Recently there has been an upsurge in the interest of sustainability. Along with it, the sale of products such as bamboo or metal straws saw an upsurge as well. It has become a trend more than a public concern to the extent where fast fashion brands like H&M pushed forward a sustainable conscious collection recently. However, how actually effective are these new trendy “sustainable” products and movements?

Hitti, Natashah. “H&M called out for “greenwashing” in its Conscious fashion collection”. Dezeen. 2 August 2019. https://www.dezeen.com/2019/08/02/hm-norway-greenwashing-conscious-fashion-collection-news/.

Whiting, Tabitha. “‘Sustainable Style’: The Truth Behind the Marketing of H&M’s Conscious Collection”. Medium. 27 June 2019.  https://medium.com/@tabitha.whiting/sustainable-style-the-truth-behind-the-marketing-of-h-ms-conscious-collection-805eb7432002.

 

Bijairm Road Expansion Construction

One ongoing heritage and environment related issue is the debate surrounding the expansion construction on road Bijarim in Jeju, South Korea. Not only will we loose thousands of cedar trees and the habitat for endangered species like the Fairy Pitta but conservationists also believe it will lead to continuous problems in the long run. The expanded Biljairm road will allow the a higher influx of tourists and lead to an increase in further construction of new amenities, further pollution, and the construction of the second Jeju Airport.

**Content regarding this issue from English credible sources are unavailable. I believe this further emphasizes the need of raising awareness for this issue.

Moores, Nial. “Test Case for Biodiversity Conservation: The Bijarim Ro, Jeju Island”. Birds Korea Blog. 13 June 2019. http://www.birdskoreablog.org/?p=22082.

“Either Hidden or Ignored”. The Jeju Weekly. 24 September 2018. http://www.jejuweekly.com/news/articleView.html?idxno=5977.

“10 Reasons Why We Oppose the Construction of the Second Jeju Airport”. Save Jeju Now. 19 June 2019. http://savejejunow.org/10-reasons-why-we-oppose-Theo-construction-of-the-second-jeju-airport/.

 

Comfort Women

Another widely held issue in Asian countries historically is Comfort Women. These women have been taken away from their homes in various Asian countries such as Korea and Taiwan and were sexually exploited by the Japanese. Even till this day, Japan has not issued any apology or acknowledgement of the wrong doings they have committed.

Lynch, Ami. “Comfort Women”. Encyclopedia Britannica.  https://www.britannica.com/topic/comfort-women

 

E Cigarettes

The design of Juul is different from the conventional form we have in mind when we think of cigarettes. On a positive note, this allows smokers to avoid social stigmas. On the other hand, this also allows teenagers to use it inconspicuously. The advertisement designs promotes a life style of relaxing, traveling, and sharing a moment. These factors come together to give a positive impression that Juuling is ‘healthier’ than cigarettes or that it does not contain nicotine. On the contrary, one pod contains up to 3 times to amount of an average cigarette. According to the founders of Juul, they used to design to come up with a solution to a public health concern. However, they ended up creating a new problem.

Vox. “How Juul made nicotine go viral”. Youtube. Uploaded by Vox. 11 August 2018. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFOpoKBUyok

 

 

2. Why is the issue important? Who does it affect and how?

The issue is important for several reasons. First of all, the environment is an issue that concerns all of us. Although in the end it is up the individual’s freedom whether to act on it or not, we all do bear a responsibility to be conscious about it. Secondly, currently there is a lot of attention focused on the being sustainable and being green. Thus, there cannot be a better time than now to annunciate methods on how to be sustainable. With the high influx of sustainable products and services, we should learn how to deal with it. 

Superficial sustainability affects both the consumers and companies. 

Consumers affected will mainly be those who are following the sustainability boom/trend that has surfaced recently.

Affected companies can be divided into two broad categories. Firstly, there are companies who see sustainability as part of their company philosophy/policy. Examples of such companies are The Reformation and House of Marley. Secondly, there will be companies supplying a series of sustainable products in order to meet the demand of the consumers. An example will be H&M and their recent Sustainable Collection.

The Reformation 2018 Year Review https://www.thereformation.com/pages/2018-year-in-review

 

3. Who do you need to communicate to and why?

The main target audience will be consumers in their 20s to 30s. As consumers, all of us have the responsibility to be more conscious about the products we consume and how. Fortunately, a lot of us are aspiring to become more sustainable recently. Thus, to me it seems like there is no better time than the present to target consumers.

Traditionally, the need for consumers was recognizing the importance for sustainability and being eco-friendly. Currently, on the other hand, most already do recognize this importance. So alternatively consumers need to learn the right methods of going green. For instance, a product could say it was made from recycled materials. But just like fruit juice, it’s the percentage that matters.

The effect we expect is a higher discretion process during  purchase of “sustainable” goods. Examples will include checking the percentage of recycled resources used or how long the product should be used in order to make up for the manufacturing cost. In the case of Tesla cars, the initial manufacturing environmental affects are larger than average cars. However, it quickly makes up for all of it in just 18 months.

 

4. How was visual communication contributed to address the cause?

Apart from articles or videos, it was difficult to find any other project addressing the same cause. Thus, I looked into the visual communication of brands known for being sustainable instead. 

House of Marley

The website as a whole mainly uses natural colors such as brown and green. The sans serif font they use has a tight kerning. Perhaps fonts with tight kernings use less ink to print. Most of the photographs were of nature sceneries and model shots of using the product was mainly taken in the nature.

 

The Reformation

The main colors used are white, green, and pastel pink. Along with the color, the photographs of models being carefree in nature creates a dreamy utopia like future which must be representing an ideal sustainable future.

The Reformation provides a sustainability report every year. They shy away from using professional terms and uses visual aids such as pictograms and graphs to help get the information across easily.

 

LUSH

LUSH has sustainable company philosophies: 100% vegetarian, ethical buying, fighting animal testing, and naked packaging. They aspire to convert all their liquid products into solids so they can reduce the number of containers.

Their main colors for packaging consisted of a consistency of black and white while the display or visual merchandising included brown as well. LUSH uses sans serif as well along with a handwriting font. One thing to note is that most of their products are naked to avoid as much packaging as possible.

https://uk.lush.com/article/our-environmental-policy

Commonly for all the brands, they used icons to get their point across easily. In addition, all of them used sans serif fonts. I believe these two features were to connect with the consumers on an easier and casual note. While House of Marley and The Reformation had a simplistic and clean shaven look, LUSH used handwritten fonts or display objects that look hand made. Perhaps the difference comes from the fact that LUSH also focuses on creating hand made products and their factory environment. However, as a whole all the brands made an effort to take a friendly tone with their design or jargon rather than a serious or strict tone when it came to discussing sustainability.

FIELD TRIP: Harvey Norman

KARCHER Vacuum Cleaner

This product caught my eye because of the handle design. I found it interesting how the handle was incorporated as part of the curve of the body. Unlike most products where the handle protrudes and does not follow the flow of the body (like the sample image below), this vacuum cleaner’s handle does not look out of place. Image result for vacuum cleanerThe circular body will make it convenient for the user the wrap the pipe. Although it is a 3 dimensional object, most main elements are placed on one side. The handle which is highlighted with yellow, the logo, and tube where the pipe is attached is placed on one axis. On a positive note, it is easy for the viewers to comprehend how to use the product at one glance. In addition, the tilted axis of the handle suggests that when the user carries the vacuum cleaner, the pipe will be jutting away from their body. Thus it make ergonomic sense that the lower part of the handle and pipe are on the same axis.

 

 


DE’LONGHI Coffee Pot

Overall, the choice of color and material was interesting to me. The visual norm for coffee pots I was used to were industrial and in limited colors such as silver or white or black. So the organic curve and colors of green brown caught my attention. The orb shaped pot lid handle adds to the organic curves. Although the matte brown plastic handle adds a nice contrast to the green glossy surface of the pot, Image result for plastic handleI feel like a better choice could have been made. A different type of matte plastic with less texture like the sample image could have been chosen. Another alternate could have been to use a less glossy surface for the green body and use dark wood for the brown plastic parts.