Final Project WIII

This week also consisted of two sessions of supervision and additional group work. To kick this week off, on day one, we followed up our coral reef nourishment concept by summarizing some of our findings regarding different reefs, where they are located, and what they need as nourishment. During the supervision we were told that we can kind of fake some information too, for example, we can categorize a group of yellow-colored coral reefs and name them yellow corals, and claim that they need magnesium as a main nourishment, etcetera.

We’ve also settled on focusing on shallow reefs that are closer to tourist destinations, close to the beach, easier to access by beach go-ers.

1. Caribbean
2. Hawaii
3. Southeast Asia
4. Australia

With that all set, we started exploring the art direction of the product, creating a storyline, creating a style guide, mock up some lo-fi digital illustrations, and so on.

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On day two, we set ourselves out to create an objective: communicating a product that is based on EAT and FEED principle, we began ideating for some potential ideas of how the packaging of our product should look, what shape or form it should take on. I think most of us started looking at sustainable packaging, anything that’s NOT plastic. We added different photos of packaging to our mood board. We came up with crazy outrageous ideas such as tuna cans, Ben and Jerry’s ice cream jugs, milk cartons, fish oil capsules, vitamin jars, and so many more!

Eventually, we started discussing about popsicles, and idea I actually came up with (and am pretty proud of).

So why popsicles? It’s a typical refreshment anyone including tourists can enjoy by the beach. What if these refreshments meant for humans can also act as nourishment for the corals? Popsicles can take on so many colors, perfect if we want to communicate our product with colors. We started to ideate upon what part of the popsicle should be used to nourish the corals.

We had ideas such as licking away the first layer of ice cream and exposing the layer inside which would actually be sunscreen that you can rub on yourself, and then the sticks can be tossed in the water as nourishment (they can be left by the beach as well and get flushed in the oceans, they’re biodegradable). Ultimately we moved on from the concept of sunscreen being incorporated in our product, as we would simply like to create a food product for us AND the corals.

Finally, we have a clear vision on our final product: It would be a Hybrid popsicle, for humans to ingest, but have little bubbles inside (think tapioca bubbles in bubble tea, or fish oil capsules, gelatinous) that are meant to be spat out and thrown into the ocean to nourish the corals. Through appealing to leisure on the beach, our product encourages people to share the experience with the coral reefs by feeding them a part of the ice cream. We are aiming to create a familiar product that is twisted and unique in some ways. Global warming became our new focus, and it perfectly complements the coldness of the ice cream. Global warming is causing our corals to bleach in color, so the metaphor of corals being hot and needing to cool down is a playful way to hint at the deaths of other species.

Visual guidelines: playful communication, playful packaging that has a twist, colors, thought provoking. Helvetica Neue as font (for product website).

My Role:

My role this week has been more prominent than the weeks prior, I helped establish our main product concept, the ice cream, and was a major part in establishing how the nourishment takes place. I also helped creating some visuals, photoshopping the logo Viviana has made and the product pictures Therese has took, onto real-life photos that boosts affinity to the product (because it’s more relatable when you see it in “real” life), creating these photoshopped photos also helps establish our “world”, our world that such ice cream exists.

My visuals: (using first iteration logo and graphics)

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Reflection: Working in a group for a speculative design project is fun, you get to share your ideas no matter how outrageous they are. For this project I feel like we really got to use our utmost creativity to make up products that suit our situation and fit our SDG. An ice cream that nourishes corals? A food product you can have yourself and also share with life under water? Sounds so crazy and twisted but it also kind of makes sense, it’s speculative after all. I also finally got to play with photoshop, haven’t gotten to do that too often in this program/course.