Intercultural Design: Final Prototype-LuckyMiao

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Week 6 - Week 8
14/2/2023 - 1/3/2023
Leong Jiahui / 0353469
Bachelor of Design (Honours) in Creative Media
GCD 61304 / INTERCULTURAL DESIGN
Continuous Assessment – Project 3(Final Prototype)

MIB:


WEEK 6 (14/2/2023)

TLDR: We were so stressed we got a bit unhinged

I present to you, our final prototype: 

The Tokyo Maneki-neko Greeting Card Series:

fig 1.1.1 Maneki-neko greeting card (20/2/2023)
Through this series of greeting cards, we aim to greet people (specifically designed to be sent in family WhatsApp groups) and spread positive vibes (they need it). The inspiration behind this prototype is the "live laugh love" motto practised by many above the age of 50. It is motivational, to receive such a positive message in the morning and that is precisely our rationale. 
Here is our mood board: 
fig 1.1.2 mood board 1 (20/2/2023)

fig 1.1.3 mood board 2 (20/2/2023)
It is interesting to note that while the English and Chinese versions of "good morning" greeting cards are in different languages, at their core, they both have a similar vibe and their signature poor graphic design. The design was so unintentionally bad that it was almost impossible to replicate. Needless to say, it was an interesting visual language to study. Considering that it would be hard to suddenly change our topic, we decided to use the info from our data collection and make them based on the Japanese lucky symbols. Very fitting for a greeting card that spreads positive vibes, if you ask me. 
It was also good that everyone was on the same page:
fig 1.1.4 Yes, I agree (20/2/2023)

In case you're wondering, yes everything stated above was A JOKE. 

WEEK 7 (21/2/2023)
Anyways,
After some unhinge-ness, we got back to work. We have a lot of animation and coding to do, and I went straight to doing none of those and looked for bgm/sfx for our gashapon website.
fig 2.1 bgm & sfx for the website (22/2/2023)
I hadn't anticipated working with Ae so closely for the entire sem. There's no escape. What if I start catching feelings? Dammit.
fig 2.2.1 how sem 2.5 feels like (24/2/2023)
I need to stop wasting my time making memes and more time actually making something useful. Because we're all single mothers who work 2 jobs, now we have to step up our game and animate every other possible thing because why not? 
fig 2.2.2 animation layers in Ai (24/2/2023)

fig 2.2.3 animation process on Ae (24/2/2023)

fig 2.2.4 my villain origin story (24/2/2023)
Anyways, after some struggles, here is how it turned out: 
fig 2.2.5 background animated gif (24/2/2023)
The deadline is drawing closer and our website is only halfway done. Because only 1 person, Siew Weng, is working on the coding, we are at her beck and call whenever something needs to be reanimated or adjusted. Let's just say that happened a lot and suddenly this project didn't feel very fun anymore. But!! The glimpse of the landing page Siew Weng showed us looked very promising, so remaining optimistic we shall. 

WEEK 8 (28/2/2023)
Crap it's presentation week already. Our website is still not complete. Well, the structure is there, but look too close and you'll see that it's threading on a dangerously thin line. Our teammate is doing her absolute best so I'm doing my best to support her in every way possible. 
Our poster is also coming along great! Pei Yun was in charge of this, and she did a great job creating that vintage scrapbook newspaper feel to it! 
fig 2.2.6 Final Presentation Poster draft (26/2/2023) 

The Presentation

Finally it was presentation day! Everything went well! I think the whole experience can be summed up with this video: 
fig 3.1.1 presentation reaction video (1/3/2023)
Suddenly the weeks of hard work felt worth it again. It was awesome that everyone was a great sport about it too! Super proud of the team🥺
You'd think we'd be getting our well-deserved rest now, right? Wrong. We decided to go all out and make that freaking landing page for our branding because why not. 
fig 3.1.2 landing page carousel content (2/3/2023)

fig 3.1.3 landing page layout (2/3/2023)
Did a couple of slides for the landing page carousel and wrote the website intro/description. Now it's up to Siew Weng to work her magic and bring it all to life :D

Final Outcome


LuckyMiao Gashapon store compilation: 

Poster: 

fig 4.1 final poster (3/3/2023)


Feedback

WEEK 8 (28/2/2023)
Ms Anis and Mr Azrizal believed that the prototype was interesting and well done, especially within the tight time frame we were given. They provided us with some feedback:
  • rearrange the poster, have more focus on the prototype visuals and cut down on lengthy text
  • lack of a landing page branding 

Reflection

After what felt like forever of hard work, we are finally done! This project is so emotionally taxing and physically draining I'm so glad we managed to pull through. For the amount of stuff we managed to pull out of our asses this definitely did not feel like 8 weeks. 

Group 

Having a module that is fully group project based was new to me, and I have to admit that group work is not entirely a preferred working mode for a lone ranger like me. However, my team members were all cooperative, fun, reliable and punctual with tasks which made the experience a nett positive. Everyone has different skills to bring to the table and yes, while some carried more than others and the task delegation can never be 100% fair, everyone did their best to make LuckyMiao possible. Sure, there were miscommunications & misunderstandings when it comes to the tasks and as always everyone will have different opinions & art directions, but what can I say? That's just part of the ✨group work experience✨

Experience 

I still couldn't wrap my mind around the fact that it's been almost a month since we've been to Japan? This might be my favourite module since starting uni, tbh. It's really different from what we have been doing all along. I think our project might've been a perfect fusion of everything we've learnt up to this point, from researching to illustrating to vlog editing to sound effects to animating to coding. I was stressed for a good part of the project trying to delegate and complete the tasks by the designated deadlines, but man,, the outcome was the most satisfying thing ever. I'm super proud of everyone for pouring their hearts into this project and making LuckuMiao possible💖 LuckyMiao will forever have a special place in my heart.

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