Bet you can’t tell the difference between ‘fresh food’ and 'waste food’ from supermarkets! Come test yourself at our @nowasteyesparty stall on CLUBS DAY THIS WEDNESDAY. Free produce hand outs to take home when you have a go!
REFLECTION 💭
28.10.16… How I felt overall
Here, I will write my overall reflection of
the GRAP2639 Studio 1 Communication design experience. Last semester, we hardly (or maybe none at all) worked on group works for any
of the other courses. There was at times when we had group review and feed back
sessions but not a huge assignment as the FOOD event. Therefore, this FOOD
project was something very new to me and very challenging. It was interesting
to work with people who had different backgrounds, taste and opinions. Working
with the same team for the duration of 13 weeks allowed myself to really
understand their strengths, weaknesses and their voices–Once you’re a part of
the team you simply can’t ignore it, but to understand and respect them. And
that’s what made each of the team unique and strong.
Working as a team taught myself to communicate my ideas and thoughts out loud
to my team members, where as this would have been kept in a rationale if it was
an individual assignment. It was a constant challenge to put myself out there to suggest any ideas or I would have missed the opportunity. This brought us to the next step when we had to collaborate with other teams. When I realized other teams progressed and re-mixed with each other at a relatively fast pace, I learnt the importance of being confident and energetic to communicate in group works! But overall, the results were very rewarding and the collaboration work seemed special then ever.
In my specialist classes, it was a different kind of ‘challenge’ working with different lectures. Few of my lectures were new to me, and it’s almost the same as working with different clients. I found it important to approach and talk about the ideas and techniques actively, especially when they have never seen your previous work, but it was’t easy. I was often nervous to do so as I was afraid they will disagree with my concepts or simply did not understand. I’m always reluctant to change ideas once I lock them in. However, when I had the critique review and feed back sessions I was taught to open my perspectives wide, open for different ideas by peers and lectures.
Overall, it was a very challenging semester!
(Video: documentation of my experience in the participation of the event)
21.10.16…🍎🍌🍓🍏🍊🍇 FOOD EVENT 🍎🍌🍓🍏🍊🍇
The day has finally come! After about twelve weeks of preparation, our FOOD event came to life! I had the mixture emotions of relief (finally coming to an end) and feeling worried (have we acomplished everything?)
The above video is a personal documentation of my entire experience and process of my participation in the meal. As seen in the video, the installations, colored glasses, tote bag with goodies, projection videos, journey to the Victoria market and of course, the preparation of the food all contributed to
a unique, special experience. There were so many various interactions, entertainments and work put in to this event so I think the experience would have been different for everyone therefore, I decided to document my entire experience. I showed this video to some of my friends in Japan and they were really amazed at how ‘wild’ we were making the fruit salad, chucking and throwing fruits in to the blue sheets for over 100+ students. (Hopefully Andy will show some of these footages to the future first year students)
Anyway, overall I think my team and I were satisfied with our result. We went through a lot of failure, disappointments, chaos and countless discussions but we made it through. Unfortunately, our team wasn’t able to have a busker to come in and perform on the day but after all it didn’t really matter I guess. Our aim was to spread the ‘awareness of the banning of amplified busking’. For everyone to enjoy the music, the busking culture and the positive atmosphere while making a difference for all the buskers out there, those affected by the issue. It wasn’t about setting the fancy stage, or professional set-ups or the live music but wether we were able to make a difference to the issue.
(Photo: The speaker we booked at the AV centre with some post-it notes with the artist’s information)
I think we successfully accomplished this, not solely by our team but of course, from the help and support by other teams. Many Thanks to Jasper for introducing us to Yasin; a busker on Bourke street, the projection team for setting up the projector to play our interview and the digital narrative team for featuring our videos for the website. This wouldn’t have been successful without their collaboration and communicating with each other. At the
end of the day, we were able to spread this awareness to over 100 students, Andy and Chris. And who knows how many visitors we will continue to receive on the website! although the event came to an end, it will still continue to spread.
Most Importantly, it was a great experience to reach out to people out of the RMIT community that may be beneficial for future projects.
As an outcome, we organized the music for the event, the geo snapchat filter, sticker and the interview video. During the semester, there was at times when our team was a bit fluffy with our ideas, but I think Brenda took the smart move to design the stickers and the snapchat filter at a fast pace. I guess this was important in group works, someone had to make the first move. Stickers are
fun and cute, but they also took an important role to lead visitors to access the website. This was another design strategy to ‘spread the awareness’. Our interview video, the music, stickers and the snapchat filter idea all interrelate with each other, all designed to direct towards the same aim as mentioned before.
(Photo: the printed sticker we made to include in the tote bag)
Throughout this project, I found it very difficult to constantly catch up to have discussions especially when everyone was busy with their schedules and other assignments. This is what I found most challenging and frustrating in a group work, as I wasn’t able to work on things at my own pace as we all had to agree on the one idea and to equally share the amount of work. I think the one thing our team may have lacked was a platform to communicate. We didn’t really have a group chat for all four team members to chat. So when we had the ‘emergency’ three days before the event we had trouble finding a place for everyone to chat as we all used different apps. I believe things would have moved smoothly if we fully took advantage of social media and technology.
But I guess this is a good lesson taught for future group work assignments.
I felt this became a little easier when Tommy’s group organized a Tumblr page for the FOOD event. @core2639 I often used #core2639 on my Tumblr posts, so other teams will be able to see and read what our team was working towards. It was important for our documentation to spread, to avoid overlapping of the same ideas with other teams that may occur from lack of communication. However, the hashtag allowed me to help this issue. They frequently reblogged everyone’s post so It was easier for me to access to everyone’s post rather than going through my news-feed that included other people’s post that doesn’t relate to the course. (This is actually the exact feed back I gave to Tommy! haha)
Everyone’s outcome was truly amazing and beautiful, this day will remain a special memory of my university experience.
19.10.16.. Issue with the lighting
Team: Brenda, Marianne, Mira
This video shows how the projection display is obviously affected by the sun light. So, the setting of the projector is highly important as our video strongly depends on visuals (subtitles) with no audio. If the subtitles are not legible, there was no point of the video 😢 Please refer to the next for more description on this issue.
19.10.16… SPEAKERS AND PROJECTOR TRIALS 📢🎥
Team: Brenda, Marianne, Mira
After we were notified/decided that we won’t be having any buskers to perform on the day, our team had to look for other alternatives. (Unfortunately, we won’t be having any buskers to come in and perform due to several issues). After some discussions, we decided that we will borrow some of Yasin’s music (a busker we interviewed) and also play the interview video I am currently editing. (We were originally going to have a busker to do a short speech on the issue)
Of course, we were extremely frustrated, pissed and stressed out (haha) as we had to find other alternatives three days before the event. However, when I think about it now and reflect back, this was a highly valuable experience for us in the future as accidents do happen and that we should always have a Plan B ready no matter how confident we are. However, with all this happening in such a busy week, I think our team moved on and worked together at a relatively fast pace. One of the most important lesson I learnt from this mistake was; no matter how confident and dedicated you are to the idea, if things doesn’t work you have to move on quickly and think of another solution rather than sticking on and being attached to the old idea. I think this is why Andy has always emphasized that ideas should be left ‘open and wide’ for complex problems.
We borrowed the equipments at the Audio and Visual Equipment loans in building 8 Level 7. This was my first time using this service, so this experience may be handy in the future. As seen in the previous video, the setting of the projectors were highly important. We played the video on to different surfaces to see which was the best and most legible.
We then summarized the outcome to re-mix with the projector team. After discussing with them, they have decided will be having an extra projector on the day! :) We also contacted the installation team as they have proposed they will be installing works on the walls, so we had to make sure which part they will be using to avoid clash with our video!
We booked all the equipments we need for Friday from 9:00am-2:00pm.
15.10.16… Sticker design process + preparation! ☺︎
Team: Marianne, Brenda and Mira
Brenda was working on the sticker designs tonight as we discussed the design process together through Facebook. The above images show a very quick prototype sketch I did during our conversation. I found that Facebook was rather a very convenient way of communicating as we were able to take photos directly from the app. This was a very important tool for both of us as I live far from the city, and it was quite difficult to catch up in our own busy schedules. We basically communicated using sketches and tones of screenshots to suggest ideas/opinions and at the end, we got there. I find that using images (including drawings and examples) was a much smoother way to communicate the idea, especially if you’re working distant to each other.
We really wanted to incorporate the QR code, as they are quick & easy, rather than having someone to actually type in the link directly to their phone. (I don’t think people will be bothered to be honest). However, we did also include the link as not 100% of the visitors will have a QR code-scanner app. Our major aim was to spread the awareness of the banning of amplified busking so we wanted to make sure everyone has access to the website that contained valuable resources including our interview videos with buskers.
Before we printed out the finals, I printed the sticker design at home (at actual size) and scanned it with several devices to see wether it actually detected the QR code. (I have also sent it to few of my friends too, just to make sure!)
(Image: cutting out 100 stickers as a team, to prepare for the event on Friday.)
During our design process, we realized we needed the link to the website. As there was not much time, I called out for help on the ComDesign First years Facebook page to find the website team. Not long after, Lucy from the Digital Narrative team (who I was looking for!) commented me straight away, which was extremely helpful. The Digital Narrative team kindly published the website for us to hold the link right away after I requested, so that helped a lot! Again, Facebook was an extremely helpful tool as the ComDesign First year community page has develop quite a lot, and everyone there is always willing to help out. This is probably one of the most used tool to communicate with some of my team members and also other teams.
(Image: Asking for help on the ComDesign First year Facebook page)
13.10.16… Sticker creations!
Team: Brenda, Mira & Marianne
Yesterday, I printed out some mock-ups for the stickers we are creating for the FOOD-event to show Brenda. **This is not the final design for the stickers** I printed out the snapchat filter design for now, just to see the print out result. I found various adhesive papers from last semester at home, so I decided to experiment using my Epson EcoTank Expression ET-2500. (I would definitely recommend this printer, it includes two years worth of ink!)
As seen in the images above, one of the adhesive paper was not coated for ink-jet printers. The ink was still wet, and didn’t dry even after few days. Secondly, the wood grain adhesive sheet didn’t go through the printer. So, we had two options: the Jac Double-Sided Adhesive Sheets (This paper was actually recommended from David Cutter from last semester) or the Folex Inkjet Sticky jet.
The result using the Jac Double-Sided Adhesive sheet was more matt but the printed graphics had a rough finish. On the other hand, the Folex Inkjet Sticky jet was glossy, shiny and clear. Although the colours turned out lighter than it was on the screen, we can solve this by adjusting the tone of the colors. I think the wood-grain paper would’ve been interesting and unique, also being environmentally friendly but would’ve been way higher in cost anyway.
We are making 120 stickers, as we wanted to make sure no one misses out on one. Each stickers will be 5.3cm in both width and heigh, so we would fit 24 stickers on one A4 sheets of paper. After our planning, we went down to Eckersley’s art and craft store to purchase them. It was about 20$ for 5 sheets of paper with a student discount 👍
(Image: an image of how it will look on laptops)
We had few ideas to include a QR code or the url link to the Food-event website, that people could access. (we may need to ask the documentation/digital narrative group, @digital-narrative) Stickers are highly popular, in personal uses and even for marketing purposes. Once they are in someone’s hands, they can end up anywhere: on the streets, laptops, books, cars etc. They travel beyond what you expect, which can gain countless impressions from people! I think its interesting for the food-event to grow out of the Rmit community. Once the visitor access the food website, they will come across our content, which addresses the awareness of banning of amplified busking. Not only are stickers fun and cute, but I think they are a great way to communicate and attract people with a low cost budget.
10.10.16… Our second-Interview!
Team: Brenda, Mira and Marianne
Our team gathered on Monday before class, to interview Yansi; a busker in Melbourne introduced by Jasper. I was a bit worried as it was raining in the morning but by the time I arrived in the city the sun was up 😃 Unfortunately, we couldn’t film him perform as his next busking schedule was in five weeks but we have other alternatives; we could use the previous shots we took back in week 6 or perhaps borrow Jasper’s old videos that he has kindly suggested to us. We managed to finish the interview within 30 minutes so after that we continued by filming some people chilling at the grass area of the state library to emphasize the picnic/community aspect of the food-event. The interview went pretty smooth, as this was our second-interview, we were probably more confident. Thank-you to @jux-doodles (Marianne) who organized the interview.
Sadly, the sound went horribly wrong. We could hardly hear the conversation as there was lots of cars behind. Hm… I didn’t have this in mind at all and didn’t expect this to happen. 😬 But again, we looked for other alternatives by using subtitles or asking other team members if there was anyone who specialize in sound editing. However, editing the subtitles is a back-cracking job to do… especially when It’s difficult for me to hear what he’s saying with all the background noises, but hopefully I can get this done by early next week. I’m using iMovie because I have no idea how to use Premiere pro or after effects 😬
10.10.16… Last core class!
Today was our last core class for Studio 1 Communication design. As a group, we conducted the ‘cognitive walkthrough’ method to examine and understand the system of the event as well as ‘evaluating the combined effects of FOOD’. The cognitive walkthrough technique is one of the cost-effective and quick usability testing compared to other methods such as the Unmoderated Remote Usability Testing (URUT) that involves data capturing and analysis.
This prototype model was originally created by @polguth11‘s team and later contributed and used by other teams. As we went through the cognitive walkthrough with this model, it allowed us to have an overall idea of what was exactly going to happened on the day. The large mouth/lip idea as an entrance was so innovative and interesting, giving us a unique experience from the start (entrance) and later followed by the mouth walls that plays with light.
This idea reminds me of the ‘DMM.Planets’ exhibition by team lab held at the ‘Odaiba Minna no Yume-Tairiku 2016 ~A World of Wonders~’ in Tokyo. This exhibition includes four various experiences in different spaces, all with unique installments, sensational experiences and user interactions.
(Photo: from DMM.Planets)
The visitor first enters the exhibition to walk through the water to disinfect their feet, and followed by a dark, black ‘maze’. From the maze, the visitor is lead to one of the four spaces–this exhibition has no specific order. I think that the way this entrance was designed, drastically changes the experience of each visitor and visit. Firstly, entering the ‘crystal universe’ or ‘Drawing on the Water Surface’ space (both space plays with light art and projection installment) from a dark-black room would have created a huge impact and shock for the visitor. It’s a bit like entering a small, narrow space to an ‘endless, enormous dome space’. This experience would have been completely different if the entrance was designed to lead directly to the spaces.
Secondly, its exciting that the visitor’s does’t know which spaces they are lead to and what to expect. (everyone loves a surprise) This is one of the distinctive feature of this exhibition, as exhibitions usually have a specific orderly walk through. This reflects the mouth/lip idea, perhaps giving each of the students a distinctive and unique walkthrough that may change the entire experience of the event.
(Photo: from DMM.Planets)
From this cognitive walkthrough session, our team had also realized that the busking space might clash with the mouth installment. However, we looked for other alternative opportunities.
Reference:
DMM.Planets: "DMM.PLANETS Art By Teamlab | July 16 - August 31, 2016". Exhibition.team-lab.net. N.p., 2016. Web. 12 Oct. 2016.
Jarnes, Mark. “With ‘DMM.Planets’ Exhibition, Teamlab Defines The Future Of Art | The Japan Times”. The Japan Times. N.p., 2016. Web. 12 Oct. 2016.
06.10.16…”you are what you eat” final artifact
I re-attempted the wood block inspired technique and overall I am very satisfied with the final outcome. I will note down the brief process:
(Photo: process of creating the junk-food patterns)
For my second attempt I crafted the patterns much smaller and avoided using white as Georgia mentioned, it will print grey on the wood paper. It was extremely difficult and back-aching creating such small intensive patterns, I could’ve done this much faster digitally but the results wouldn’t have been the same–I wanted to maintain the raw-quality of hand crafting process. I had two options of making the kimono shape.
One. cut out the kimono shape and then applying the pattern
Two. create a whole sheet of pattern and then cutting out the kimono shape.
(Photo: cutting out the Kimono shape with the crafted pattern sheet)
Of course-option one was faster and does not waste any patterns made, however, the patterns will somewhat look awkward and ‘stuck on’. So I decided to go with option two that will have a natural pattern flow and cropping. For the base I used this beautiful shimmery deep-purple cardboard purchased at lincraft, almost similar to my actual Kimono! On the template, I outlined and cut out the desired kimono size and then pasted it on the back of my pattern sheet almost as if I’m cutting out a pattern for a doll dress.
For the head, I depicted a kokeshi doll; a traditional Japanese wooden doll with a unique doll with an enlarge head. But when you look closely, the head depicts a burger, again, playing on the idea of merging two cultures together. This artifact will then be printed on wood paper by Georgia.
// Rationale //
The theme I’m exploring through my exquisite corpse is culture and stereotype. I merged the distinctive qualities of my two cultures, Japanese and Australian to represent the idea of multi-culturalism, positively responding to one of the major social issue: culture identity and social justice.
The Kimono represents my Japanese background and my Australian identity is portrayed by the typical western foods: hamburger, pizza, fries and hot dogs etc, responding to the brief ‘you are what you eat’. These are something
we would never eat wearing a Kimono but these two ironic combinations perhaps break the idea of stereotyping in culture identity. The patterns and colours of the Kimono is said to represent age, meanings of occasion, statues being a part of ‘self-identity’ for an individual. From this particular reason, I chose to integrate the western food using traditional Japanese paper in the Kimono pattern, in a way that at the same time, it almost looks like a Japanese pattern. This meaning– we should not be judging by what we think we see, but look closely, to understand and discover what’s true.
Reference:
Kokeshi doll: Wikipedia. (2016). Kokeshi. [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kokeshi [Accessed 7 Oct. 2016].
06.10.16… Inspired by woodblock prints and Ukiyo-e art style
I scanned and printed out the crafted patterns to experiment and develop some techniques. I was thinking about how I could apply these patterns to create a kimono… as the patterns were rich in colour and quite busy with lots of line work, I didn’t want to draw out the intense kimono lines. Instead, I wanted the Kimono form to be simple and basic as possible to avoid clashes with the pattern work.
I was inspired by the techniques of wood block prints by several Ukiyo-e Japanese artists such as Utagawa Hiroshige and Hokusai Katsushika. Ukiyo-e art style was flourished during the Edo period in Japan, which commonly depicted female figures, kabuki and famous scenic landscapes in Japan–printed on textiles and later paper. Artists painstakingly carved elaborate patterns on wood which then the carved areas will be left white or the original surface colour. (In my case, the spaces will be left with the wood paper)
The distinctive characteristics of ukiyo-e art style is that the colors are bright, sharp and vivid. This was coincidentally depicted in my crafted patterns! I read a lot of articles about these two artists, which is featured in the web magazine I work at. Please have a read of the some articles if you are interested in Japanese culture or art!
INTO JAPAN: http://intojapanwaraku.com/EN/
(Image: The famous “Fine Wind, Clear Morning,” known also as “Red Fuji,” from Katsushika Hokusai’s “Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji”, Source: http://intojapanwaraku.com/EN/3616)
(Image: Isetatsu’s chiyogami paper drawn by Hiroshige, Source: http://intojapanwaraku.com/EN/3506)
In reflection, I thought the result was unsuccessful, and thought it will be too difficult to craft. However, Georgia had gave me courage that it was working but suggested I should work with an even simpler form and shape. I could perhaps illustrate with the arms open wide.
Reference: Woodblock printing: Wikipedia. (2016). Woodblock printing. [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodblock_printing#Technique [Accessed 7 Oct. 2016].
Ukiyo-e: Wikipedia. (2016). Ukiyo-e. [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukiyo-e [Accessed 7 Oct. 2016].
06.10.16.. Review and critique // Exquisite Corpse
In our third week of craft specialist class, we bought in our ideas and sketches for peer review to receive some feedbacks. I roughly sketched out the shape and form of the Kimono, (I referenced back to my actual photos) and I drew and colored in the patterns to visually get an idea of my final artifact.
I read Chloe’s free writing which allowed me to understand the essence of her creative process and ideas. Her theme was based around organics, nature and natural aspects of the environment. She demonstrated a strong relationship between nature and the human body through the ‘roots system’, being an important function to hold both the tree and the human body (veins) strong. Through image making, her idea was to use raw materials from nature including flowers, trees, vegetables, fruits and some real roots of a specific plant. It will be highly interesting to see the plant roots integrated in a human form to depict the veins, this will strongly emphasis the relationship between nature and human.
Her exquisite corpse perhaps responds to the social issue of High consumption of energy-dense, micronutrient-poor food, but in a subtle way. Her representation of the relationship between nature and the human body emphasis that us human depend upon plants, and that is what holds us together. Plants not only give us the need of nutritions and vitamins but plants regulate the water cycle, oxygen, medicine and all the food resource come directly from plants. It will be interesting to see the work combined with my exquisite corpse that depicts all the junk food in contrast!
In response, I received some valuable feed backs from my free writing. She was able to see the ironic juxtaposition of the western culture vs Japanese and the different stereotypes within both. After seeing some of my developments using traditional Japanese paper, she understood the idea of the ironic colour palette of the food pattern (e.g. blue Japanese pattern as a burger bun) ‘showing a merge between the two cultures and multi culturalism’. She also suggested I could perhaps draw the patterns if I were to communicate the concept differently.
Reference: Bgci.org. (2016). Plants - How Could We Do Without Them?. [online] Available at: https://www.bgci.org/news-and-events/article/0390/ [Accessed 7 Oct. 2016].
04.10.16.. full of junks and colour 🍔🍕
In my previous post, I brainstormed some themes I could work towards creating my exquisite corpse. Today, I physically crafted out the ideas with my hands.
I gathered some crafting papers with varieties of patterns, textures and colors. I’m a huge lover of papers and crafts, so I have a huge collection at home. Today, I mainly used traditional Japanese papers as I’m focusing on western motifs to create my Kimono pattern–I wanted to maintain an equal balance between the two.
As seen in the image above, the distinctive features of traditional Japanese papers are not only it’s colors and patterns but their unique textured surface. Each paper has its own unique paper-making method and technique (e.g. screen-printing, hand tie-dye, nagashi-zuki) that makes each of them different and special.
Although it looks blue in the photo, I used a dark-purple colored paper called “eating blueberries of the bush purple” for the base to work on. This hue is similar to the Kimono I wore for the coming-of-age day. The dark colour was also a great choice to bring out the colours of the patterns! First, I attempted crafting these junk food using alternative colors of their actual colors. Colors that are almost accurate enough to identify what they were: green lettuce, yellow cheese, red-brown beef patties and so on. I was overall satisfied and happy with the first outcome, the juxtaposition between the warm and cool colours created a vibrant, strong and pop effect! However, I thought it was too obvious and the idea was literate. It almost feels like I didn’t appreciate the use of Japanese paper at all, but simply just crafting hamburgers with paper. Here is the result:
(Image: Experiment #1 I’ve also recorded a palette to indicate what type/colours of paper I used)
I re-attempted this by using the same papers but choosing different colours with more elaborate patterns that are almost completely different to what the subjects actually are. The idea behind this is to represent the western motifs as ‘Japanese patterns’. From this, my self-identity is represented in a complex way, almost concealed and hidden. My attempt is to represent them almost as a traditional Japanese pattern, but when you look close they aren’t at all, but hamburgers and fries. This idea visually speaks out about the stereotype the current society may have on culture identity. I think the result was much more interesting and new.
(Image: Experiment #2)
I also used these shape scissors to cut clear patterned lines.
04.10.16.. process of making a quarter pounder burger… yes!