140925 Travin

     During my second Summer vacation in university, I participated in the project called I - conic through the design study group 'Designstudio I'. Though it was my 3rd time to take part in exhibiting project, this was special in the aspect that we collaborated with another design study group called 'Hyphen'. We, as students who are interested in product design, made a new group with the students in branding design. When the leaders of the group explained why these 2 group collaborated, and its expected effect, I was quite cynical about it. I thought all the works of branding design is part of our works, and it is not an important part in thinking new way. We already could think of brand, and graphical things as they do. Anyway, I decided to do it, because I thought it is better to spend the vacation with some kind of design project thing, rather than personal things. 

Planning /Research

We set our interests on 'trip', especially 'trip in Korea'. Though there are lots to see nationally, there are not much promoting items. We focused on train trip, such as Naeil-ro(promoting young people to travel around the nation, by giving chances to take a train several time with one ticket). There are some problems in this marketing and we decided to develop it. It is a big problem that souvenirs of the trip don't exist and many of existing items are too limited and not attractive. And overall designs of the item and graphic is too old. 

Concept

'Korean trip souvenir brand and pop-up stores in stations' that sells track and small landmark. All the trips are different, and we thought we need all the different souvenir for the travelers. So we designed series of souvenir with tracks and landmarks that people can personally organize their own memories of trip. Along with it, we devised other ideas, such as missions, stamps, and so on. 

Sketch

Mock-up/WIP photo

Renderings

Acrylic pieces for the tracks. Laser-cutting. Actually it was misprinted, and we had to re-cut. I could learn that we have to be one-step early for the time, because there can be always this kind of trouble. 

First printings by 3D printer. It was my first experience with 3D printer. We used the printer in the university. I thought the 3D printing is perfect way of mock up, and easy, but it needed lots of steps to finish it. (removing all the supporters, sanding, and so on)And I was quite surprised that all the details we made with rendering was gone. 

How the space for pictures and tickets works. 

After sanding, we applied color with sprays. Before spraying, it needed the process of applying 'primer'. It is really a problem that we need proper space for working. We used the abandoned space in the building, and there were no windows so it felt really bad for our health. Though there is a spray booth on the rooftop, the guardian didn't allowed us to use it because it is weekend, and they don't want any possible safety problem caused by us. 

After applying point colors and the lights. We used acrylic color paint to give points to the landmarks. We decided to LED lamp with adapter for the exhibition, but if it is manufactured, we will have to concern about the lighting again. 

Printing and cutting the all the printed things. From logo to all the packages, students from visual design did their best, and it was really interesting experience to look all the process of other majors. I thought all the works they do is what we also can do, but i could find that they more deeply care about all the works than us. They made lots of samples for the only work, and carefully compared them, and choose the best one. 

Displaying

Whenever I design something, or participate in projects, I always realize I should be aware of the purpose of our projects. In this case, it was an exhibition, and we should deliver our ideas to the viewers. We should come up with 1) how to attract people to see ours, 2) how to graphically explain our ideas and make them understand at a glance. And the space was limited for each team, and actually we didn't have much time to think more about the displaying. We decided to use iPad, and made a short slide show about our items. And rather than posters that other teams usually made, we made an acrylic cuttings with our team name(and also a logo), Travin. Since it is well made logo with simple but definite graphic, and mood our brand has, It had a visual impact. Those two ideas were more than expected.