Tag: IDEA

Decolonizing IDEA

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The goal for my project is to include every Canadian in part of the decolonizing process and to show that colonization and the struggle against it for the Indigenous Peoples persist to this day. I chose to target new immigrants from ages 23-50 which is the usual working age when they come over to Canada.

Canada is a melting pot of culture and many immigrants who come over are interested in connecting with their new community and learning more about their new country. However, most immigrants do not know about Canada’s history involving the Indigenous Peoples. They lack the resources to learn more about the historical context, partly due to the fact most of the resources are only in English and French while many immigrants that come over to Canada do not speak either as their first language.

Pave is an interactive educational microsite about Canadian history, told through the perspective of the Indigenous Peoples. This site will be linked to the Government of Canada’s website so that immigrants who are looking to come to Canada can see and access this resource. The site will be translated into the top seven most common immigrant languages aside from English and French.

The site design keeps a serious, reflect tone while addressing the sensitive historic context and issues. To keep users engaging throughout the historic timeline, interactive elements and more personal stories or stories that have been passed down in a tribe is added within the timeline. The circles that form a path down the timeline are clickable and will flip over and zoom into the screen to reveal more information about the fact/story. The black and white photos on the side change depending where you are on the timeline. The photos fading in and out of the background of the timeline adds another level of movement and interaction to encourage the users to learn more about what is next in the timeline. Adding stories on top of facts on the timeline gives a more realistic and humanistic side to history through the lens of the Indigenous people. 

There is a questions and answers section where three Indigenous elders will answer non-Indigenous peoples’ questions to add another opportunity to understand the issue of Reconciliation. Hearing people’s feelings and first-hand thoughts make the issue feel more real and present to this day. The Q&A section is another way for non-Indigenous people to break their misconceptions and biases towards the Indigenous Peoples.

I would give myself an 8/10. I could not accomplish the extensive research and connect with various Indigenous elders to gather a truthful Indigenous telling of history because of time restrictions. Nonetheless, I believe that this project was an overall success in terms of design in keeping the site engaging enough, but formal enough for a government microsite about history. If possible, I would have liked to create some more interesting features of the site, but realistically speaking, for a site like this to be coded and read in 9 different languages, it would have to be fairly simpler in the design and interactions to be able to accommodate the varying text paragraph lengths.

Sustainability 101 Design Manifesto

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Sustainability is becoming a hot topic in the world and amongst the design community. As a young designer, the matter of sustainable design is very complex to me with all the various perspectives and aspects to consider, such as transparency, consumerism, global connectivity, etc.. After going through it all, the ideation process felt as convoluted as the topic, so, I decided to focus on what I believe is the core and purpose of sustainable design: reducing waste.

By taking the idea of reducing waste and combining it with the minimization symbol commonly seen on digital platforms, I emphasized the white space on the page to show that our resources can be reduced when we design smart. After this poster is taken down and finished its purpose, the blank page can be reused as scrap paper.

Another reason I chose to incorporate a digital theme into the poster is because, as a millenial, my life revolves around technology. Being a young designer as well, it’s important to realize that although I always had computers to rely on, going digital isn’t always greener. We need to know when it’s more effective to put our designs digital platforms and when to design for print. And if we print paper, be conscientious with the resources we have.

Originally, I wanted to keep all aspects of the design as eco-friendly as possible by using an ink saving typeface like Courier and kept the poster black and white. However, the typefaces were not blending well and the poster felt like it lacked impact without colour. I realized in the process that although we designers would like to be as eco-friendly as possible, that is simply unrealistic. In the end, we can not sacrifice the entire aesthetic of our designs, though the overall waste should still be accounted for. So I chose the pixel typeface to complement the digital theme and the minimization symbol, and the yellow and black combination is supposed to make people feel the message in the box is a warning like traffic signs.

I would give my solution a 9/10. I did my best to keep my concept consistent through my write up which makes the message more effective. I learned that sometimes simplifying the concept and design gets the message of across much faster. The overall design is appealing and would stand out from other posters which would get potential employers’ attention. However, I realize that my usage of the minimization symbol is not obvious to everybody which would make the pixel typeface choice a little obscure.

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