2020 has been so much different from previous years with the COVID-19 pandemic and protests against racial violence, which had huge influence on my work. Although I had limitation due to working remotely throughout the whole semester, I also had an opportunity to expand my design skills under this unique situation.
Impact and Empathy
First project we did in this semester was called Impact and Empathy. I worked with three other group members to try to express race and diversity through typography. This project was a response to the racial violence and protests that happened in the U.S. this year, and we wanted to address this issue through graphic design.
We each made 25 iterations, about 100 as a group, to explore how we can address this issue as graphic designers. After many iterations, we realized the connection between typography and race in terms of addressing its diversity. Then we decided to make a series of books, and each made one with different approaches to the topic. We also created animation that visualized our idea.
In my book, I wanted to show the power and the connection between type and race by showing the actual protest signs people had in the protests. I extracted out the words from the signs to focus on the type, and I wanted the readers to feel the actual voice of the people through the type even without sound. I’ve also listed some information about these signs: what protest this protest was about, the location of the protest, the date, and the meaning of these signs.
Question Exhibition
Second project was called Question Exhibition. In this group project, we first read 2 chapters from a book called The Graphic Design Reader, and we came up with 25 questions each. Then we again did 25 iterations as the response to questions each of us was interested in. After seeing everyone’s iterations, we realized our common interest was minimalism.
So we went with further iterations, and I focused on deconstructing everyday products by taking away the content and just focus on the design itself. I explored how minimal they can be but still be recognizable. Some of them include Biden-Harris campaign logo, Doritos package, supreme logo, facebook page, instagram page, and the New York Times newspaper, etc.
Because all of our group members worked remotely, we decided to make a video made up with motion graphics for the exhibition. The video is about 1:45 minutes, and I worked on the first 21 seconds. This was my first time to work on motion graphics, but because of this remote environment, I could challenge myself to self-learn new design skills. I could learn something new thanks to the unique situation I was in.
Research Video
Third project I did was making a video about things that influence me as a designer. I decided to make a video about four brands and their aesthetics that inspires me.
I have collected video clips for each brand and made a video with the three values that I think are important. I have also chose a music that match with the tone of the video.
Thoughts on Thesis: Creative Activism
Something I am interested in for the thesis project is creative activism. I want to use the power of graphic design to communicate to people and influence them to take action against social issues around the world.
These are some of my work in the past showing my interest in addressing social issues and current events. First poster is about WeWork laying off its employees; Second one is about the protest in Hong Kong, where I use coke bottle to refer to petrol bomb used during the protest: Third one is talking about gun violence in the US by showing the locations where shootings happened as a form of test messages; And the last one is about Turkey’s invasion of Syria in 2019.
Some of my inspirations for the thesis includes: the anti-war poster by a Japanese graphic designer Shigeo Fukuda; War Is Over! If you want it campaign by John Lennon and Ono Yoko; and graffiti art by Banksy.
For my thesis project, I want to create 17 thought-provoking posters for UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals, and make people think about these issues and influence their action to make the world better. I am planning to do a research on the social issues through resources like the official website for the SDGs, where I can see information about these social problems including data and readings put together by the UN.
