Positions through Triangulating: Δ Studio

Week 1:

Feedbacks & Reflection:

• the “sketches” are too broad –> what specific memory?
• the research feels closed –> do I already know what I’m going to learn from this studio exploration?
• systems –> theme can become the medium and subject is the material
• “Random Failures” idea
  • has a point & medium
  • what disturbs the pattern?
  • how does designers work against pattern
  • can a system undo itself?
  • find a medium that resist a system?
    

Week 2:

• look at signages
  • why this medium? –> randomness = malfunction –> signs are suppose to prevent randomness, and introducing randomness feels like the system is undoing itself
  • I want to explore how systematic design can generate instability when parameter are pushed or misused

Disrupting UK Road Signages

Arrows:

• change arrows to different directions
• duplicate arrows in opposite directions inside one sign

Icons:

• swap icons
• place multiple icons within one sign

Typography:

• replacing to different font or language
• testing the size of the type

Layout:

• shift texts into off-grid –> almost touching the boarder
• rotating elements

Overload:

• repeat or place multiple graphical factors in one sign

Absence:

• intentionally remove essential information or graphics from the signs

Feedbacks & Reflection:

• Another view of systems? –> began to think beyond just road signs –> system as part of daily life
• How people perceive each sign can be really difference depending different contexts like culture, nationality, age, etc
• Maybe compare the signs from different countries then compare & contrast
• Malfunctions in literature?
• Averaging –> Smoothing –> creates different engagement
• what it teaches VS what gets lost
• introduce malfunction through:
  • smoothing & averaging
  • randomness –> but then what’s the purpose? what can I learn from this process?

Week 3:

• signs can be very subjective based on language and culture –> compare signages from different countries
• *instructions – prompts – guidance*
• “Malfunction”
  • through averaging & smoothing
  • spatial smoothing –> what gets lost in the process?
• visual bridges
• signages if they didn’t go through “smoothing”?
  • then compare what got lost in the process
  • what change din the smoothing process?

Week 4

Atelier Hoko’s A Daily Act: Workbook

• link this reference to signages? –> create personalized icons / signages

*Microgarphics?

• choose an object & explain it in detail using signage & micro graphics aesthetics?
• Karina Yazylyan (https://www.behance.net/gallery/73516343/Aesthetics-of-technical-information-(visual-research))
  • exploring the visual language of utilitarian making, from production labels to fashion

<Smoothing>

• in cartography: Smoothing diminishes detail and angularity, might displace some point and add others to the list. A prime objective of smoothing is to avoid a series of abruptly joined straight line segments (How to Lie with Maps by Mark Monmonier)

• Smoothing in design system:
  a reductive process in design standardization that prioritizes clarity, efficiency, and universality by erasing specific, singular, and “non-essential” details.

*Need to look at what malfunctions the smoothing process can cause

*importance of Unsmoothing?

• The process of using “friction,” “malfunction,” and “visual pollution”  as critical tools to deliberately re-introduce the specific, singular context  that was erased by standardization

Week 5:

• designing a speific, singular forms/experience

Galaxis Ecosmic Type by Sulki&Min (https://www.sulki-min.com/wp/galaxie-ecosmic/)

*Further Studio Exploration

Personalized Type?

• a very personal text/information that we own or encounter every day?
  • text messages
  • song lyrics
  • recently used emojis
  • old memo
  • email
  • name in mother tongue language
  • family recipe
  • receipts

1. Reclamation of specific, singular reality

• Universal System: Standardized fonts (Helvetica, Times New Roman, etc.) are themselves ‘universal systems’ that hide their own cultural biases.
• Creating typography based on ‘specific, singular reality’ –> brings the very ‘specific context’ that standardization was designed to erase directly into the design as its core material

2. Systems that require cultural specificities

• This is that project.
• ‘personal texts’ are the user’s ‘cultural data’
  • without this data (text), the typographic ‘form’ cannot be generated at all
  • a design framework that requires user participation or cultural specificities to function

3. “Unsmoothing” and critical engagement

• deliberate friction
• critical engagement

My name, Jimin, written by inserting the Korean version of my name 지민

Letters formed with recently used emojis