Intercultural Design - Portfolio

-
MODULE INFORMATION BOOKLET




Project 1 
Proposal (Week 1-3)

Before starting on the project, we were split into groups consisting of 5-6 members each in a way that allows each group to have a fair mix of newer and older students, including students from other programmes. After getting with my group, we started discussing on the topics that sounded interesting to us and would seem like a a bit of a sensitive topic to talk about overall, since the theme for this project is 'Cultural Sensitivity in Design'. The ideas we had were:
  • Distinction of Food Culture Across Malaysia
  • Plastic Surgery and The Capitalist Result of Lookism
  • Malaysian Clothing from Pre-World War 2 Era to The Modern Era
  • Kopitiam Culture
We thought some of these topics were too sensitive so we decided to pick the safest option, which would be Kopitiam Culture, since everyone in my group is very familiar with this topic, having been to kopitiams many times especially in Malaysia. We held a voting session, to be sure, and Kopitiam Culture ended up as our topic for this project.

After choosing our topic, we came up with a few ideas that we wanted to do as our final project based around kopitiams. As instructed in the module, we were to come up with 3 ideas and a rationale (along with sketches) for each of them explaining each idea. We assigned ourselves to be put in a pair to work on 1 idea, and I was assigned to research for idea 2 alongside my partner. I took on the job of doing the layout of the presentation, and these were the ideas that each pair had in the end:

(The PDF file was too large so I put in some pictures instead.)

Idea 1





Idea 2




I did 2 of the sketches here based on what I think kopitiam is about, which would be the classic toast and egg combo with a drink, along with a bustling atmosphere.



I used some references I found online when sketching these out. I kept them simple and neat so that it would be easy to understand what the two sketches are showing.







Idea 3





The final step of this proposal process is to send it to our lecturer, who will be deciding on the final idea that we would be doing.

I found the proposal process to be very difficult, especially with a theme about kopitiam culture. Researching about this topic in general was harder than I had initially thought because it is not a very popular topic to talk about in general. It was mostly thanks to some of my group members and some Malaysian articles online that I was able to find some relevant information.

Project 2
Field Study (Week 4-5)

We were given idea 2 to base our final project on, which is to create a gathering space that is heavily referenced from typical kopitiam. Our main component of the final output is to design a Kopitiam themed layout that is like that of  a social gathering event by incorporating classic Kopitiam decorations such as marble tables and chairs, vintage calendars etc. 

We made some plans to find some kopitiam locations to get some references in-person and also make some comparisons between the 2 kopitiams. We needed to find a traditional kopitiam and a modern kopitiam to make some comparisons. The kopitiams that we have decided to visit are:
  • Thong Kee Cafe (Modern)
  • Chong Kok Kopitiam (Traditional)
We took notes of some differences between the two kopitiams, such as the difference in interior decoration, the methods they use to make simple food and drinks and the overall atmosphere. Anything that can be integrated into our final project.

We also scheduled an interview with the owners of both kopitiams with the following questions:

  • How long has this kopitiam been in operation?

  • What's the predominant customer age group and racial group here?

  • What do u think about the more modern/fancy kopitiams? (Chong Kok Kopitiam)

  • Do you think those kinds of places are impacting your business? (Chong Kok Kopitiam)

  • What made you implement this modern ordering system? What does it affect/ what’re

    the improvements you’ve seen? (Thong Kee Kopitiam)

  • Can you share some easy recipes people can make at home?

  • Could you tell us your most popular dish?
(The interview video found in the PDF below.)

The last thing we did for this part of the project is put out an online survey on people's preferences when it comes to kopitiam.


I found the data collection process to be very enjoyable since we had to actively seek out these kopitiams as part of our research. At the same time, we got to enjoy the food and drinks at both kopitiams, in which no matter whether it is a traditional or modern kopitiam, the food will be delicious.


Project 3
Final Project & Portfolio (Week 5-7)
After making some final changes on our parts, here is the final presentation that was done.


Reflection
Overall, I found this module to be very challenging. There are times where I would be confused on what to do, and it was because with the help of my group mates that I was able to do anything.

I now understand why this was made into a group project because there are too many things to research and design if this were a solo project. No matter what the theme is, there will be a lot of material to cover, and and having another person to help you out will help in reducing your workload, and lifting the stress off your shoulders. This was what I realized while working on this project.

I think this module focuses on teamwork more than anything, since we are all in it together. There were many mishaps along our progress, but we managed to resolve them in due time.

Although this was a challenging module, it was still very interesting and fun.





Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Interactive Design - Project 1

-
Image
Week 1 - 6 SUNG J XIN/ 0370139/ Bachelor of Design (Hons) in Creative Media GCD60904 Interactive Design Project 1 Instructions Submission Presentation Design Evaluation From the homepag e, it can be determined that the website’s representative colours are red, black and white. These colours contrast with each other nicely and makes the important information stand out clearly. The colours could be applied differently to make the website look more visually pleasing to the eye. The fonts used in this website are Arial and Helvetica. These fonts make the contents of the pages look easy to read without looking too cluttered. However, In some pages, the font used is Cormorant Garamond, which looks very different from Arial and Helvetica , so there is a dip in consistentency in its font choices. The same can be said about the branding or logo, which has 3 different fonts that don’t match with each other at all. User Experience (UX) When a user wants to go to any of the tabs such as ...
Read more

Design Research Methodology : E-Portfolio

-
Image
  Week 1 - 14 SUNG J XIN/ 0370139/ Bachelor of Design (Hons) in Creative Media RES 60603 Design Research Methodology Final Report Instructions Final Report Video Presentation Presentation Slides Feedback Reflection Experience Task 1 At the beginning of the module, we are required to search for a topic that interests us, with various sources that are related to it, whether it is directly related or mentioned somewhere else. A topic came to mind about minimal illustrations because I had been looking at some minimal designs prior to the start of the semester, so I decided to base my topic around it. It was a bit difficult to think of the research questions and research objectives that aren’t too basic and easy to answer. I came up with some and received feedback from Miss Jinchi to improve the research questions and research objectives to make them more interesting. I wrote down the problem statement using paraphrased sentences from existing sources and shortened it more to make it mo...
Read more

Information Design - Exercises

-
Image
Week 1 - 7 SUNG J XIN/ 0370139/ Bachelor of Design (Hons) in Creative Media GCD 60504 Information Design Exercises Instructions Exercises Exercise 1 - Quantifiable Information I have a packet of colorful cotton balls that I could use for this exercise. There were too many so I picked out a usable amount that still has some variety in colors.  Fig. 1, unsorted cotton balls Then I arranged them by color in a swirly pattern and counted how many of each colored cotton ball there is. Final Composition Fig. 2, final composition with cotton balls Exercise 2 - L.A.T.C.H Infographic Poster For this exercise, we needed to organise a group of information that combines and utilised at least 4 of the L.A.T.C.H principles. I have decided to choose sharks as my topic and listed out the L.A.T.C.H principles I will be using, which will be; L (Location) = The Mediterranean Sea A (Alphabet) = Shark Names by Alphabet C (Category) = Species of Sharks H (Hierarchy) = Apex Predators, Mid-Level Predators,...
Read more