Speedy Recovery! – Research and Development

In this project, we are tasked to create a well-wishing card, assuming the role of “Ng Teng Fong Hospital” and giving this card to their patients. This project guides us to explore the use of folds and cuts to give life to paper, to experiment out how different folds and cuts could give rise to different spaces and experience while navigating through the card itself.

The first step I took was more hands-on, coming up with physical designs of cards without even thinking of the content first as I am more of a hands-on person. It was easier for me to generate something physical before thinking of what content goes where in that space, then editing the physical form if needed from there.

Some physical designs at initial stage
Some physical designs at initial stage

One design featured a typical pop-up card but with words flushed to one side, one design focused more on interacting with the cover itself making “windows” where nurses are cheering on the patients, and one design was a “waterfall” card which could feature several panels (pics drawn to differentiate panels only) when a tab was pulled. When the tab is pull down, the panels flip upwards and reveal the following panels one by one, as shown below.

The original state of the "waterfall" card
The original state of the “waterfall” card
Second panel revealed when tab is pulled downwards
Second panel revealed when tab is pulled downwards
The final panel revealed after tab is fully extended
The final panel revealed after tab is fully extended

After much consideration and discussion, I decided to focus more on the most typical of all – the pop-up card. This was not because of choosing the easy way out or going with the flow of the typical design, but because of several factors. The pop-up card is simple to understand and requires minimal actions to see the entire design, unlike some which might even require instructions to operate the card. The pop-up card is also relatively easy to make on minimal pieces of paper, and looks minimalist to fit the production costs and image of the hospital, and not to show something extravagant in which patients might feel it is a waste of money or worse, the hospital trying to earn more money. The card was also decided to take on the size of 20cm x 15cm, to be big and clear enough and have enough negative spaces to give a more relaxing feeling. The subsequent explorations of this design are as follows:

Front cover
Front cover
Interior of the card
Interior of the card

I chose a theme of pastel watercolor style as I feel that it is a very calming and soothing color scheme, and the style alone is very neutral, seemingly suitable for patients of all ages and both genders. The absence of characters and objects makes it more neutral and classy in simplicity. I also wanted the front cover to look very very clean and polished, just plain white with a bit of the color scheme to link with the overall treatment of the card. With the white cover, opening the card up to a splash of colors could also be a pleasant surprise and more liveliness, together with the pushing out of the pop-up design. Typefaces chosen were either rather plump and rounded or are of handwriting styles to look more friendly and add a human touch to it, as well as considering the strength of the pop-up design to hold itself and not be too fragile as well. The corporate text is also minimized at the bottom and of a lighter tone to take less weight and seem more sincere in wishing well rather than promoting the hospital. Nonetheless, feedback included that the cover seemed too empty and plain, and lack the kind of visual interests that could arouse the patients to want to open the card.

A subsequent tweak to the front cover included the addition of cartoon “Ng Teng Fong Hospital” nurses who have been caring for the patients and also to provide context that the card is from the hospital. This is coupled with “Speedy Recovery” to give the card an identity and label. The background is then the same as the interior to make sure that exterior and interior are integrated. Nonetheless, the visual link between the two still seem weak and it does not seem to flow well between the two, making them seem like separate entities. The words also seemed as though they are just floating.

Exterior V2.
Exterior V2.

It is then time to work on these flaws to come up with the final design!

Author: Wilson Heng

Eat. Sleep. Draw.

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