Intercultural Design / Proposal, Data Collection, and Visual Outcome
Derin / 0354969 / Design in Creative Media
GCD 61304 / INTERCULTURAL DESIGN
Proposal, Data Collection, and Visual Outcome
INSTRUCTIONS
PROJECT 1: PROPOSAL
In this module, I'm grouped with 2 Creative Media students and 3 Fashion Design students. Altogether, we are group 11 :3
- Adifa Putri Harisyam / 0358362
- Bibi Hibah Peerbaccus / 0355054
- Derin / 0354969
- Edwin Choo Quan Rong / 0348305
- Nida Jahs Ahamed Nafeel / 0358010
- Sharifah Sofiatul Balqis / 0356473
Afterward, we have a group meeting to brainstorm our topic proposals. We finally decided on Malaysia's traditional culture as our research topic. The 3 subcultures we chose are Kuda Kepang, Orang Asli, and Wayang Kulit. We split the work into 3 groups of 2 for the 3 proposals. I was tasked to research Orang Asli alongside Adifa.
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| Fig 1.1 Task division on proposals |
Adifa and I start by doing background research on Orang Asli. We worked on Google Docs since it allows collaboration among people if shared. The work is split among us equally.
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| Fig 1.2 Research of Orang Asli |
Later on, I did several proposal sketches together with Adifa. The following is the first draft of the sketch proposal.
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| Fig 1.3 1st draft: Character concept art |
We had a group meeting a few days later, and we agreed to make it illustrative as a cover book instead and have the composition changed to the perspective of a worm's eye view.
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| Fig 1.4 2nd draft: Composition change |
At the last minute, we realized we should focus more on their culture visually instead. So we drew a sketch of Orang Asli's traditional clothing for the final presentation. We made sure to make it more sketch-like, too, since it's supposed to be a detailed sketch.
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| Fig 1.5 Final sketch proposal for Orang Asli |
Final Outcome
All of the research and sketch of Orang Asli are moved to the group slide. The following is the result of our proposal research, joined with our other groupmates.
PROJECT 2: DATA COLLECTION
After our presentation and receiving feedback from Mr. Asrizal and Ms. Anis, we collectively decided to proceed with Wayang Kulit out of the 3 proposals we had.
The following are the things we do for the data collection we visited a museum and an exhibition and interviewed an individual specializing in the making of Wayang Kulit.
1. Fusion Wayang Kulit
The first place we visited was the Fusion Wayang Kulit exhibition located at the GMBB Mall. Fusion Wayang Kulit is an award-winning team working hard to revive the beautiful Malaysian art of Wayang Kulit (shadow puppet) by fusing the traditional with pop culture and sci-fi elements. (Note: Hibah, Nida, and Sofia went here previously during the proposal to look for physical work of Wayang Kulit. Edwin and Adifa went here again to collect data for us to present.)
In there, we get to see the process of making a Wayang Kulit and cool works of Wayang Kulit that were adapted from DC and Marvel movies.
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| Fig 2.1 Fusion Wayang Kulit Collection |
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| Fig 2.2 Process work in the making of Wayang Kulit |
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| Fig 2.3 DC heroes as Wayang Kulit |
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| Fig 2.4 Marvel heroes as Wayang Kulit |
2. Malay World Ethnology Museum
The second place we visited was the Malay World Ethnology Museum. Malay World Ethnology Museum is next to the National Museum on Damansara street in Kuala Lumpur. The gallery focuses on Malay society and cultural diversity in Malaysia through highly aesthetic collections of artifacts, such as traditional arts, clothing and jewelry, traditional games and weaponry.
As we conducted a visual analysis, we discovered that this gallery displays physical works of Wayang Kulit and its information from different cultures and a visual layout of a Wayang Kulit theater.
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| Fig 3.1 Malay World Ethnology Museum |
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| Fig 3.2 Stage layout |
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| Fig 3.3 The display of Wayang Kulit works |
I compiled the data we collected into the group slide.
3. Interview with Sharon Chin (Studio Chincarok)
Around this time, we finally scored an interview with Sharon Chin from Studio Chincarok after multiple attempts to reach out to her socials (yippee!!). We prepped some questions and forwarded them to her beforehand so she could avoid struggling to answer them and have an idea of what we would interview. I helped compile everyone's questions into one long text while adding some of my own.
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| Fig 4.1 Interview questions making process (1) |
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| Fig 4.2 Interview questions making process (2) |
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| Fig 4.3 Confirming the timeslot and forwarding the questions to interviewee |
This was made possible thanks to Sofia's attempts to conduct the interview :)
I couldn't attend the meeting and join the interview because I wasn't available at that time of day :'(. My lovely groupmates, however, were able to interview Sharon Chin without any troubles. Hibah led most of the flow of the interview which what drove it to success.
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| Fig 4.4 Interview with Sharon Chin |
Fig 4.5 Group 11 Data Collection: Malaysian's Traditional Visual
Culture - PDF, Week 5
FINAL PROJECT: VISUAL OUTCOME
For our final output, our idea is to make an interactive card containing information and facts about Wayang Kulit.
We divided the tasks according to the content of the card. The plan is to make two sections of flippable pages on the left side of the card and a waterfall card on the right.
- Design of the right-side of the card: Hibah, Nida, Sofia
- Design of the left-side of the card: Adifa, Derin, Edwin
- Design of the front & back cover and A1 poster: Adifa, Derin, Edwin
- The physical output of the card: Hibah, Nida, Sofia
The team and I decided on the color palette together. We referenced colors used for the Wayang Kulit stage. We made use of the design principles learned during our first semester and made sure to implement them in out design. I traced the tree of life (you know what they say; work smart, not hard). I also made a stage curtain drape and traditional clouds with swirls. All of these are referenced when browsing through google search images. I created the swirling effect using the eraser tool and made the lines clean & smoother by reducing the number of paths. Finally, I realigned them using the pen tool.
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| Fig 5.1 Vector art making process |
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Fig 5.2 Flippable pages making process |
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| Fig 5.3 Final design of flippable pages |
After that, I made the front & back covers. I reused vector art I previously made, like the branch-like patterns taken from the tree of life.
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| Fig 5.4 Cover making process |
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| Fig 5.5 Final design of the cover |
Afterwards, we compile all of our designs and printed it out. Hibah, Nida, and Sofia worked on designing the content of the waterfall
card and creating the physical interactive card. They did an amazing job
considering the time we had left to create the physical card!
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| Fig 5.6 Interactive card showcase (1) |
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| Fig 5.7 Interactive card showcase (2) |
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| Fig 5.8 Initial layout design and content of A1 poster |
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| Fig 5.9 New A1 poster making process |
Final Outcome
In the final week, we presented our work. Unfortunately, Nida couldn't attend the presentation day since she was back in her hometown. So instead, we have her video recording presenting her part. Other than that, our presentation went smoothly.
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Fig 5.10 Group 11 Visual Outcome: Malaysian's Traditional Visual Culture - JPEG, Week 8 |
Fig 5.8 Group 11 Visual Outcome: Malaysian's Traditional Visual Culture - PDF, Week 8
FEEDBACK
Week 2:
Mr. Asrizal replied to our proposal: "You need to angle your topic now into cultural significance that will help you look at the topic as visual culture. Work on wayang kulit or kuda kepang." Our group deciphered it that he suggested we focus more on Wayang Kulit and Kuda Kepang.
Week 4:
- During our presentation, Ms. Anis commented that we had done our research well, as it is detailed. She asked about our final output, which was a surprise since she personally said to only worry about that at a later time. She adds that our presentation skills could have improved since we seemed stiff and looked into the script too much.
- We contacted Mr. Asrizal through Microsoft Teams after deciding on the Wayang Kulit proposal for our final project and stated our plans and details for the output. He replied: "Okay this works if you play around with the publication materials and try to replicate the essence of wayang kulit (puppet/shadow etc2). If it's just normal visual booklet, the impact will not be there."
Week 6:
Ms. Anis gave a thumbs-up to our data collection, so no changes were made.
Week 8:
Not much was said about the feedback on our presentation. Ms. Anis asked about our most significant finding while doing this project. We answered that it was during our interview with Sharon Chin where she told stories about her experience with Wayang Kulit and how it affected her view on it.
REFLECTION
This short semester has been hell-ish. I shouldn't have trusted the lecturers saying we could relax and take it easy this semester!!! This semester's projects are different from what we previously had. It requires you to work in a group, and this module involves a lot of research, like, a LOT. Now, I'm not fond of group projects—my experience with them hasn't been the most memorable. I was worried about the problems arising from group projects, such as potential conflicts, uneven work distribution, and the pressure that your work can affect other people's results. My first and second worries dissipate after grouping and knowing my groupmates. Luckily, my groupmates contributed much to the project discussions and worked hard until the end.
Another facet I wasn't keen on was the unlimited scope of our freedom on our topic of choice. Like, what??? For me, most creative endeavors take place within a restricted appropriation. Setting restrictions on your creative process fosters more creativity than free and open ones. But perhaps because of that way of thinking, this becomes a good experience for me as a designer to expand my creativity in situations like this.
I felt lost doing this project because, most time, we needed to figure out if we were on the right track. It's like spilling your effort blindsided, hoping we pour it into the right hole. I was too used to being guided through things that make trusting your instincts hard. But to look at this from the lecturers' perspective, they are trying to train us to figure out how to stand on one's own two feet, but of course, it would be nice to receive explicit feedback.
Overall, Intercultural Design was a wild ride. Despite the accumulated stress, the experience I gained from this project has helped me improve not only as a designer but also as a person. As someone who strives to be an animator in the future, this experience is precious as I was able to experience what it's like to work on a long-term project as a team. The venture changed my perspective on group projects. It helped me learn to have faith in my lovely groupmates and taught me the ways to work efficiently in groups. My experience working on this project will immensely benefit me in future work. :3