ADD ON IDEAS

CONCEPT 1

I found out this zine about nostalgia. The designer made use of image manipulation to create a really grainy effect to mimic old dusty vintage photographs. I think this is a really smart way to create an immediate effect among audience that this is something about the past. I tried mimicking the effect and it actually turns out to create a completely different vibe. It gives off a much vintage aesthetic and this could be a new concept for the photoshoot, making use of image manipulation to create that vintage effect to deliver the idea of past memories. 

CONCEPT 2

I also came up with a new idea on "old Hong Kong", being nostalgic of the old streets signs of Hong Kong. Street signs and neon signs are actually one of the most significant feature of Hong Kong. Most of these signs have its own unique typography on it. 

Most of these neon signs have been taken off from buildings due to safety issues. However, there are still some hanging on buildings in some old districts.  The fonts printed are all different and has their own style. I think using. these old Chinese typography as a new concept of the image manipulation of the photographs would also be interesting to deliver the idea of past memories. There are also a lot of local designers or magazines trying to make use of old typography to create the vintage aesthetics. 

I then tried to add some text onto the photographs to mimic old vintage designs. I also came up with the idea of making them into postcards. As postcards are used to keep memories and spread memories to people around, I think it would be an appropriate medium for the theme nostalgia and something that is related to a specific place. 

I also warped the words to create that flowing effect of memories, how it is not a physical and solid object. 

RESEARCH ON NOSTALGIA

VIDEOS 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WiTgn5QH_HU 

• Nostalgia was once considered an illness confined to specific groups of people.
• was seen to be a negative mental state
• intense yearning of home
• anyone separated from their native place for a long time is vulnerable to nostalgia
• mental condition similar to depression
• difficulties letting go of childhood
• longing to return
• homesickness
• general longing to the past
• mindsets changed
• does not generally put people into a negative mood
• remember personally meaningful and rewarding experience
• can boost psychological well being
• help increase self esteem and social belonging
• make them act more cheerfully
• can restore well being
• new marketing technique
• helps us remember the value of life
• and be confident and motivated to face challenges in the future

After watching this short TED video on YouTube, I discovered that nostalgia is not only about the present and the past, it is also about the future. I am amused that I did not know about this before the photoshoot... This could be a new concept for the photoshoot that talks about the future. As most of the final outcome is about how one is trapped in his past memories, and longing to go back, I can actually develop a series of photos that talks about how we can actually make use of the feeling of nostalgia to motivate ourselves and develop hope within us.

MY OWN OBSERVATION

I realised that it is very true that nostalgia can actually encourage people and trigger sense of motivation towards the future. Taking myself as an example, I used to live in a house in the countryside when I was small, I moved out to the city after 12 years living in that house. Even until now, I still thinks about that place very often and sort of associated the place with my childhood memories. This makes me want to develop my future career and earn more to actually buy the exact same house in the future. Although it might not work, it actually motivates me to work hard for my future.

Sometimes, when I hang with friends, we would also talk about the past memories of our generation, about different cartoons that we watch when we are young and we can talk about those for the whole day. This process of reminiscing the past actually makes people happy and create a sense of connection among each other. Sometimes, we even go to some old places in some old districts in Hong Kong to kind of have a little escape from the prosperous city. This also shows that people tend to make use of nostalgia to escape from their hectic life. It could be a quick review of old photos, or even a visit to old places.

INSTAGRAM

This also makes me think of the old cultural heritage of Hong Kong and also those that have already vanished due to the new world development. I have also discovered that there are a lot of Instagram accounts about the "old Hong Kong" and old places that we used to go when we were a kid. The prompt of these accounts are usually about nostalgia and how we can actually use social media to keep the memories and even spread it to new generations.

As seen in previous modules, I am really interested in Hong Kong culture. I think I can actually expand this module's concept of a person's nostalgia into a generation's nostalgia, where I can actually use some old features fo Hong Kong as the main element to deliver the message. Since I am staying in Hong Kong for the coming semester, I think this could be a really good opportunity for me to really think about how I can further develop the idea.

UNEXPECTED FEEDBACK

After asking for feedback from peers, I decided to ask adults for some feedback too. As I am afraid that the feedback would be too one-sided. I got some unexpected feedback from an adult.

From previous feedback from peers, they tend to think that playing the cards with close friends would be a better idea than playing with strangers. They thought that they would not want to show their darkest side to stranger or acquaintance as they would want to build a good impression in front of people. However, the new feedback I heard from my friend's parents is exactly opposite to that.

My friend's parents thought that it would be harder to reveal their darkest side to close friends. As close friends know about all their past, they would hold back when playing with close friends and would be scared to show their dark side. On the other hand, when playing with strangers, they thought that they would be more open to answering those questions. What they care more about is their close friends' thoughts, instead of strangers' first impression.

This feedback his so interesting to me. However, I received it a few days before the deadline and there is already not much time left to make big changes. Therefore, if given more time, I would definitely further develop the concept of my work and listen to more feedbacks from different age group to get unexpected comments that I would never have thought of. 

MODULE EVALUATION

I feel like this is the least time given for finishing the whole module. I don't know if it is due to the pandemic or its just my own personal issues, but I am definitely working under loads of stress in this module. As the deadline is around one month after COP's I tend to feel so dead and not motivated to work for this module after the COP deadline. I procrastinated and had no motivation to work for the almost 2 weeks after the COP deadline. I felt so stressed every day, yet, have no motivation to start doing work. Whenever, I got that slight motivation to start, I felt like I was having a creative block and that my ideas were so bad. 

I also realised that I tend to magnify my stress a lot. I always feel like there is no time left to finish everything and I would not be able to handle it before the deadline. This habit of magnifying my stress is giving me even more stress. However, I would say on the other hand, it helped me to work efficiently..? I started to officially start working around one and a half week before the deadline. Before that, I did some brief research and reviewed the brief to get myself familiarised with the requirements. After officially starting to actually work on the design work, I felt like the pressure that I gave myself actually pushed me to produce a large amount of work within a day.

Overall, I am quite satisfied with my final outcome. This module requires a lot of observation work and responds to feedback. These kind of primary resources from peers actually is turns out to be taking a big part in my research work. I would say crits with peers were the most useful primary research. I even changed the whole design direction 4 days before the deadline. It was tough and I was working under a lot of stress, but luckily I ended up liking the final outcome even more when compared to my work before the change. Peer feedback really had helped me a lot in the module and their feedback actually acted as a primary research for my work. Although I was not comfortable in attending the google hangout crits, I tried my best to get feedback from peers. I texted my friends for comments and asked them "what if"questions in order to get more audience's feedback. 

FINAL OUTCOME PRESENTATION

RATIONALE

POINTS TO INCLUDE IN RATIONALE 

• to break the tradition of first knowing the good side of a person when you first met them 
• test real friends 
• get to know each other more 
• minimal design, hiding something, arouse curiosity 

"You Dark As Fuck" is a set of playing cards that is designed to play in drinking occasions. The idea of the deck is to break the tradition of first knowing the good side of a person when you first met them. Audiences can get to test real friends, know more about acquaintance, or even know more about their true selves. 

Minimalism is applied in the packaging design. On the front cover, "You Dark As Fuck" is printed at lower right corner in a small text size. This is to communicate the idea of people tend to hide their dark side from others, instead of revealing them directly to people. Using this way of presenting the text is definitely not the most comfortable in terms of legibility. This is to create the sense of curiosity and confusion among audience. 

The same concept is applied on the back cover. The sentence "not-so-nice to have met you" is printed in the same size as the text in front, except, it is in grey. This is to further create the sense of confusion among audience, and make the text even harder to read,  with an underlying justification of hiding the text, like how people hide their dark side. 
As for the inside, a distorted image of old paintings of Satan is used on the fronts and a dreamy gradient of pink and blue is used on the back of the cards. The distorted images represents the the idea of the dark side of humanity as a distorted personality of people. As for the pink and blue gradient at the back, it represents the good impressions that everyone would like to give when they first meet a person. This is also the side which other players can only. see when they were playing the game. This also creates a contrast between the good and the dark side of humanity, as well as to further create the confusion among players. Players would not expect the card holder to read out dark content when they look at the dreamy colours on the back of the cards. 

INSTRUCTIONS 
Gather in a circle, continue clockwise.
1. The first person who entered the room picks a card.
2. Read the question aloud.
3. Pick a yes/no card and place it in the center of the circle, with the card facing down.
3. Everyone guess his/ her answer and pick yes/no.
4. The chosen person should reveal the card.
5. Those who got it wrong has to drink.
6. Everyone will proceed to guess the reason behind his/ her choice.
7. He/ she chooses the player with the closest answer.
8. Others will all have to drink.

NEW PACKAGING

DESIGN PROCESS

To be honest I am so stressed as there is not much time left until deadline. I came up with a decision of changing the whole direction of the branding and packaging design style. It makes me feel really insecure as the final design looks a lot simpler than the initial one. The final design looks effortless and so simple. However, I think that it is the best execution to the theme and the whole idea and meaning of the project. Only the back design of the cards are key from the initial idea and everything changed and is looking really different from the initial design. 

INITIAL 

DEVELOPMENT 

FINAL

PRESENTATION

FINAL REFINEMENTS

After listening to my graphics design friend's idea, I decided to change the design direction into minimalism. To keep consistency with. the box packaging design, I decided to change the designs of the cards into as simple as possible to match with the minimal theme. 

1ST CHANGE

Compared to the initial design, this is comparatively simpler. It looks fine for me, but considering the fact that I am going for a minimal design, and all the research on minimalism designs, I decided to most the black border and use only the. manipulated image as the whole background of the card. Therefore this design will not be used as the final outcome. 

2ND CHANGE 

This would be the final outcome of the cards. With only the image as the background and small text to keep the design clean. 

Mockups will then be made to present the design. To be honest, if time allows, and resources are provided, I will definitely make this deck of cards into real one. My friends are really interested in playing them and I would be really happy if my design is real. 

MINIMALIST DESIGNS

GOOGLE
https://designshack.net/minimalist-graphic-design/ 

https://www.nyfa.edu/student-resources/mastering-the-art-of-minimalist-graphic-design/ 

• Minimalist graphic design is a philosophy of creating something where every element serves a purpose. It is simple, clean and beautiful. It is highly usable. These designs are easy for users to understand and engage with. We’ll take a look at minimalist graphic design with ten tips for doing it well, plus examples of those principles in action.

• Elements such as color and typography are also used with an emphasis on simplicity with extremely pared down palettes that may include only one hue or typeface. Details and space are design factors that really rule the aesthetic. Because there are not a lot of elements to work with, every design divot is on display. 

• keep it simple 

• Use Simple Yet Impacting Typography

INSTAGRAM

I also found out that there are actually instagram accounts that has tutorials for graphic designers. They teach us how to use softwares, how to create certain effects, or even how to achieve a certain style. I found this post really useful which is created by @thewilsonwings. It is a really useful account for me in terms of learning some designs principles and hard skills. 

MY THOUGHTS

The biggest thing that I have learnt is that minimalist designs tend to have each and every element useful. There won't be any element that exists our of no where and has no meaning or function. Principles on colour usage might not be applicable as I would like to keep the stretched Satan images in their original colours to keep the aesthetic. As mentioned previously, desaturating them causes difficulty understanding the images. Therefore, minimalist design principles will only be applied in the terms of the usage of fonts and typography. Something clean and small. 

FINAL INSRUCTIONS AND YES/NO CARDS

GAME INSTRUCTIONS 
Gather in a circle, continue clockwise.
1. The first person who entered the room picks a card. 
2. Read the question aloud.
3. Pick a yes/no card and place it in the center of the circle, with the card facing down. 
3. Everyone guess his/ her answer and pick yes/no. 
4. The chosen person should reveal the card. 
5. Those who got it wrong has to drink.
6. Everyone will proceed to guess the reason behind his/ her choice.
7. He/ she chooses the player with the closest answer.
8. Others will all have to drink.

The initial idea was to print an instruction manual out and put it inside the box. So players can put it on the table and together look at the instructions when playing. However, considering it as a drinking game, there is a high possibility that  players would spill alcohol and drinks everywhere. The idea might not be the best way. Therefore, after a while of consideration, it is decided to have the instructions printed on the back of each YES and NO card. This would be the best way of execution so that when people place their card in the centre of the circle, they can review the instructions and everyone will have the instructions in hand to prevent the inconvenience of sharing one manual in the centre. 

FINAL OUTCOME (YES/NO CARDS) 
yes and no cards with instructions printed at the back. There will be 10 copies of each yes and no. 

FINAL CARDS QUESTIONS

https://www.mantelligence.com/deep-questions-to-ask/ 

I looked up dark questions online and took the factor personality test as. reference in order to recreate my own set of questions. Many of them are developed from the original statements from the test and some I added a little tweak to make them into scenarios. The following are the final 52 questions that I have recreated and will be used in the final outcome. Each question will be printed on each card. These are the finalised questions. Many of them have been rephrased under the advice of my psychology and translation friend to make the questions more to the point. 

1. If you won the lottery, would you tell your family?

2. If you witnessed a murder, would you go to the police?

3. If you had the opportunity, would you gladly pay a small sum of money to see a classmate you dislike fail his / her exam?

4. If you received more change than you’re supposed to, would you tell them?

5.  If your lie would hurt someone else but guarantee success for you, would you still do it?

6.  If there was only a small chance of getting caught, would you cheat?

7.  Would you be willing to take a punch if it meant that someone you dislike would receive two punches?

8.  Do you believe that there are no right and wrong ways to make money? Or only easy and hard ways?

9.  If you found out that your rival has gone through tragedy, would you be sympathetic towards him/her?

10. Do you think most people are basically good and kind? 

11.  Do you believe that a revenge is sweeter if it takes longer to prepare?

12.  If someone behaves like scum, is it okay to treat them badly?

13.  Do you believe that most people are somehow losers?

14. Do you think that people who get mistreated has usually done something to bring it on themselves?

15.  Would you sacrifice the life of your beloved to save a bunch of strangers?

16.  Would you murder three innocent children to save someone you love?

17. Is it okay to disobey the law if you are unlikely to get caught?

18. If you knew when someone is going to die, would you tell him/her?

19. If you saw your best friend’s partner cheating on him/ her, will you tell the truth?

20.  Do you think that everyone should be treated equally?

21.  Do you believe that most people deserve respect?

22.  Would you choose not to tell anyone your real motives unless it’s useful to you?

23. Do you believe that success is based on survival of the fittest?

24. Do you think that a smart person always know when, how, and to whom to say something in order to seal the fate of someone who offended him/ her?

25. Do you believe that people will be punished if they do evil?

26.  If there was a zombie apocalypse, will you kill your friends in order to survive?

27. Would you eat another human alive to survive?

28. If the person you hate the most can be sent to hell, but you need to go down too, would you?

29. Do you think that some people in society are simply inferior to other people? 

30. Have you ever had a thought about killing someone?

31. Have you ever thought about dying?

32. Would you like to know the cause of your death?

33. Would you lie to your closest friend for the rest of your life just because it’s beneficial to you?

34.  If killing was legal, would you murder the person you hate?

35.  Would you sleep inside a coffin for one night if given 1,000,000 dollars?

36. Does it give you pleasure to see your rivals fail?

37. Do you believe that lying is necessary to maintain a competitive advantage over others?

38. Would you say anything to get whatever you want?

39. Do you find joy in manipulating other people?

40. Would you feel a tingle of joy when someone else got hurt in front of you?

41. Are you keeping track of information so that you can use it against people later?

42. Do you believe that those who have hurt you deserves sympathy?

43. Do you want people to be afraid of you and your impulses?

44. Do you believe that you deserve more than others in life?

45. Have you ever stolen from someone?

46. Would you be able to stand it when someone else shares your spotlight?

47. Would you pay to watch someone you hate be burnt to death?

48. Have you ever humiliated someone on purpose?

49. Do you think it is okay to spread rumours in order to protect someone you care about?

50. Would people regret it if they messed with you?

51. If you were on Titanic, would you push someone off the lifeboat to get the last seat?


52. Would you be willing to suffer small harm, so that someone else would be punished?

[PRIMARY RESEARCH] CRITTING WITH PEERS

I decided to ask my psychology and translation friends for advice regarding the content and the game rules. They helped a lot and the friend who is studying psychology definitely gave useful comments in designing the questions as she know how to put herself into the shoes of audience well. My translation friends helped to make each and every wording. accurate and precise, without adding in any personal preference in them. They helped me a lot and we talked about the phrasings of the questions, the game instructions and the striking sentence which would be placed on the back cover of the packaging. This is probably the most useful discussion I have had throughout the project and I have learnt a lot from it. 

**GAME INSTRUCTIONS + MAIN POINTS

After a while of discussion with peers, I realised that I need a set of instructions in order to guide people in how to use the cards. We took a long time discussing the rules and came up with the funnest and simplest set of rules for players to follow. 

1st draft 
1. spin the bottle
2. the chosen person pick a card
3. read the questions aloud
4. choose yes or no
5. others guess his ans 

2nd attempt
Gather in a circle, continue clockwise.
1. The first person who came in the room picks a card. 
2. Read the question aloud and a pick yes/no card. 
3. Everyone guess his answer and pick yes/no. 
4. chosen person reveals yes/no
5. ppl who guess wrong drink
6. ppl who guess right guess the reason
7. chosen person choose closest ans
8. all other ppl drink

final rules 
Gather in a circle, continue clockwise.
1. The first person who entered the room picks a card. 
2. Read the question aloud.
3. Pick a yes/no card and place it in the center of the circle, with the card facing down. 
3. Everyone guess his/ her answer and pick yes/no. 
4. The chosen person should reveal the card. 
5. Those who got it wrong has to drink.
6. Everyone will proceed to guess the reason behind his/ her choice.
7. He/ she chooses the player with the closest answer.
8. Others will all have to drink.

I decided to add a short striking sentence at the back cover. When customer flip the box to the back after looking at the front cover, there will be a short and straight forward sentence to provoke striking feeling. This is an advice from the psychology friend that I critted with. She thought that this idea would further make audience wanting to buy the set of cards. 

STRIKING SENTENCE AT THE BACK COVER

• hmm.. are you the darkest person? 
• you think you know her well huh 
• you think you know the person next to you, but do you? 
• the tables have turned. now you'll get to see someone's darkest side first. 
• not-so-nice to meet you. 
• not-so-nice to have met you. 
• your second chance to leave a first impression. 
• we do not have a second chance to leave a first impression 

THE AIM OF THE GAME 

• test real friend 
• get to know each other more 

POINTS TO INCLUDE IN RATIONALE 

• to break the tradition of first knowing the good side of a person when you first met them 
• test real friends 
• get to know each other more 
• the black on the front cover engulfing the pink on the back, translating the idea of the dark side of humanity taking over the good side 
• "you", "as fuck" collapsing and '

VISUAL REFINEMENTS

With or without the white border? It definitely looks more like a playing card with white border. However, is it necessary? Can I develop my own style of cards? I personally think that the one without the border looks a lot better with a cleaner outlook. 

The newest design where the white box is placed to box the image makes the image pop more. Also, the thickness of the line match with the curve on the back ground more as they are of the same weight. 

As Alegreya Sans SC regular is used through out all the cards, I thought that using it as the back cover would make the branding look more consistent, however, regular turns out to be too thin when placed on the light background. Therefore, for the final design, I decided to use Alegreya Sans SC bold (right one). As the sentence is meant to be really striking when audience read it, I think that making it very clear to see is important. 

As for the cover, a graphic design friend gave a really useful comment. She said that I should not have used typography on the box cover. As the"dark side" of humanity is something that people would want to hide instead of directly show it to others, the packaging design should be minimal with small text that looks like I am trying to hide them. This is a very useful comment and I thinking I am going to change the packaging into something minimal instead of the one I am using now. 

OLD DESIGN 

NEW DESIGN

The new design is so different from the old one. It is so minimal and the font size that I used in the from and the back is so small that it is not a comfortable font size to read. This is to create confusion among audience and the dark grey used on the font on the back cover makes the words even harder to read. This also translates the idea of how people would like to hide their. dark side instead of revealing them directly to everyone. I think this design is more applicable to the theme. The original design is something that I came up with initially, without really thinking into the justification. I think this new design best suits the theme, although it looks effortless, it communicates the idea well and proves that simplicity is key to design. 

Now that the packaging design has changed, what I have to do next is to change the inside. as well.. I do not have much time left and tbh this is stressing me out so much...

WHAT TO DO NEXT

• change front bg of cards into plain black 
• how about the back? should I keep the pinknblue gradient? I think that the idea of creating the contrast among the card holder and other players is still applicable. I might just change the front design and keep the back design

CARDS QUESTIONS (INITIAL)

I was going to directly copy and paste the 70 questions from the personality test. However, after showing few cards to peers, they thought that it would be really boring if they play the cards during drinking occasions. They would want something more exciting and interesting. I then decided to remake the set of questions and make the content more interesting. I thought of the best way to remake the questions, is to turn them into scenarios to provoke imagination among users. Especially with alcohol, it would be even more interesting and fun. I then showed friends again few of the examples of my newest idea and they showed a lot more interest in playing the cards. They told me that they would really want to purchase them if this is real. I was so glad to have heard that and this makes me want to further develop the idea and motivates me to continue working on the brief.



The following are questions that I have remade so far.  I decided to think of a total of 52 questions for 52 cards to match with the number of poker cards. 

1. If you won the lottery, would you tell your family?

2. If you witnessed a murder, but the murderer saw you, would you go to the police?

3. If you had the opportunity, would you gladly pay a small sum of money to see a classmate who I do not like fail his or her exam?

4. (If a business makes a billing mistake in your favour, would you tell them?)  If you received more change than you’re supposed to, would you tell them?

5.  If your lie would hurt someone else but guarantee success for you, would you do it?

6.  If there was only a small chance of getting caught, would you cheat?

7.  Would you be willing to take a punch if it meant that someone you did not like would receive  two punches?

8.  Do you believe that there are no right and wrong ways to make money? Or only easy and hard ways?

9.  If you found out that your rival has gone through tragedy, would you be sympathetic towards him/her?

10. Do you think most people are basically good and kind? 

11.  Do you believe that a revenge is sweeter if it takes longer to prepare?

12.  If someone behaves like scum, is it okay to treat them badly?

13.  Do you believe that most people are somehow losers?

14. Do you think that people who get mistreated has usually done something to bring it on themselves?

15.  Would you sacrifice the life of your beloved to save a bunch of strangers?

16.  Would you rather murder three innocent children or watch three of your loved ones die in front of you?

17. When is it acceptable to disobey the law?

18. If you knew when someone is going to die, would you tell him/her?

19. If you saw your best friend’s partner cheating on him/ her, will you tell the truth?

20.  Do you think that everyone should be treated equally?

21.  Do you believe that most people deserve respect?

22.  Would you choose to not tell anyone your real motives unless it’s useful to you?

23. Do you believe that success is based on survival of the fittest?

24. Do you think that a smart person always know when, how, and to whom to say something in order to seal the fate of someone who offended him/ her?

25. Do you believe that people will be punished if they do evil?

MY THOUGHTS 

After trying to put myself into the shoes of audience, I realised that the phrasings of each question is really important. Each word provokes different emotions among players and I have to keep in mind that I should not add on my own emotions when creating the questions which is distract them and make them inclined to answering what I want them to answer. 

Also, I have to keep in mind that I should not include any gender stereotypes in the questions. I have to imagine that these cards are real and would be used by everyone in the world. I should carefully use the wordings. 

Before remaking the questions, I was so worried about the content of the cards. I felt like it is redundant to coat this set of cards as people could have just go onto the D FACTOR website to do the test. However, after listening to suggestions from peers, remaking the questions, I felt less worried. Although it is the most time consuming part of the whole project, thinking about the questions, it provides context to my work, and makes the content richer. Creating work that is not weak in context has been one of my biggest concern in my work. This can definitely help me a lot in adding context to my work, making it more meaningful.