This is a zine that represents my understanding of design minds. In the Design Minds Seminar, we discussed numerous design-related topics that impacted my view of design significantly. Among those topics, I chose four of them that influenced me the most, and illustrated them in the form of a 2D pixel game.
Echo Chamber - With the excessive use of social media and the personalization function embedded everywhere, people nowadays constantly live in their own echo chambers. News, comments, ads, drama series, all of the feeds we receive are filtered by AI and exactly match our own interest and standpoint. To break the echo chamber, we need to consciously step out of the comfortable digital world, to accept discomfort, to reach out for different voices. This is essential for designers, as we have to fully understand our constituents and their point of view, in order to design products with the best user experience.
Normality - We have seen so many designs that only fit the "normal" people, but there is actually no "normality" as everyone is different. A person with physical challenge or with minor ethnicity is no different from a tall person or a female. Everyone experiences exclusiveness somewhere. Thus, it is of designers' responsibility to eliminate negative experience for all, to consider every group of people and make them feel included.
Urban Mine - The production of digital products in modern society requires striking amount of metals, which lies in under-regulated areas and consumes illegally hired young miners. Meanwhile, the fast iteration of digital products generates substantial amount of electronic wastes, ruining the environment. The proposal of urban mining effectively tackle both issues - to recycle the metals in e-waste and use them in new products.
Experience - Nowadays, almost every product around us is designed to be fast and convenient. People's own emotional experience is somehow ignored. What is a precious thing you have that has accompanied you for a long time and will never be thrown away? It was difficult for me to think of even one thing. Stepping out of the fast and convenient world for a while and thinking of the designs that really lasts, we realized that we should sometimes slow down, to design an experience and make it means something to people.
This video was also made using Adobe After Effects. With previous experience in After Effects, this time the whole process was around 5 days. All of the assets were created using rectangular grid and live paint tools in Adobe Illustrator, with reference to the 2D Super Mario game and some pixel arts on public webpages.
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