Creative Brief
A daily collection became a way to connect design, nature, and people.
The vehicle brief asked us to collect something each day and turn it into a project after the trip. I chose pressed plants, photographs, and small details. This became an informal design-ethnography exercise: looking closely at daily settings, recording what caught my attention, and asking what those observations might mean. The collection reflects my perspective as a visiting student.
Collecting also became a way to connect with people. A piece of grass could start a conversation about its Japanese name; a plant could lead to a discussion about biology. Those interactions gave the collection meaning beyond the objects themselves. I wanted the finished book to hold those connections.
Making the Book
The book gave separate encounters a shared visual language.
After the trip, I brought the collection of pressed plants, photographs, paper, tape, drawings, and words into a scrapbook. Making the pages helped me connect natural forms with architecture, textiles with graphic patterns, and studio ideas with everyday details.
Each spread uses composition, color, texture, and layering to connect observations that were separate during the trip. The book preserves physical traces as well as photographs: evidence I could arrange, revisit, and interpret. It is a record of how I understood the experience, shaped by my own background and the people I met.
All 25 scanned spreads are collected here. Turn the pages, swipe, or use the arrow keys while the book is focused. Expand the book or open a full-size scan to read the smaller details.
Learning Through Making
Working across languages made visual communication more intentional.
In the two-day collaboration with students in Nagoya, we spent time learning about one another before designing name stamps. We explored names and personality, practiced calligraphy, and used Adobe Illustrator to prepare designs that became laser-cut rubber stamps.
Working through drawings, examples, and gestures alongside words made communication part of the design process. The stamp connected a person’s name and personality with typography, cultural context, and physical production. Before deciding what to make, I had to pay attention to what my collaborator was trying to express.
The calligraphy and name-stamp work appears in book spreads 11 and 12.
A Broader Design Practice
Different ways of making expanded what I could bring to a project.
Studying alongside people in game design, animation, industrial design, anthropology, and PR and marketing exposed me to approaches outside my usual UX work. Seeing the animation and game-jam collaborations made that range feel tangible. These were opportunities to learn from other disciplines and consider how their methods could inform my own work.
Craft workshops, museums, and studio visits broadened that exploration into graphic design, marketing, animation, and three-dimensional art. At Dwarf, Archeco, and advertising and creative studios, I saw different ways to develop an idea, communicate with an audience, and bring a concept into a finished form.
Area of exploration | What I carry into my work |
|---|---|
Graphic design and typography | Using composition, lettering, color, and cultural context to communicate meaning. |
Game design and interaction | Considering participation, choice, and how people become involved in an experience. |
Animation and storytelling | Thinking about sequence, pacing, and how an idea develops over time. |
Marketing and visual communication | Connecting a creative concept with an audience and a purpose. |
Craft, materials, and 3D art | Exploring form, texture, space, and the relationship between a digital idea and a physical object. |
A Concept to Revisit
A three-day concept became an idea I want to keep building.
With about three days to think through a concept for the Archeco UX studio visit, I explored a digital experience for international students studying abroad. In Figma, I began bringing an itinerary, saved places, public-transit notes, and group planning into one place.
The Home and Map screens translate travel questions into possible features: keeping group updates together, connecting an itinerary with places and transit, and making shared costs easier to track. The callouts describe the intentions recorded in my Figma annotations. These are design hypotheses from a short exploration, still to be researched and tested.
Home screen · Early concept
Travel essentials in one place
1. Currency and shared costs
The currency converter sits at the top of Home. My Money-tab annotation adds a shared-expense log to track who owes what after group outings.
2. Keep group updates close
The Recent Chats area would surface announcements and important or recent conversations, using a familiar group-chat structure.
3. Plan at different scales
The itinerary introduces Schedule, Day, and Week views. I wanted an expanded calendar with more options, and explored whether organizer messages could help populate consistent schedule information.
Map screen · Early concept
Turn places into shared experiences
4. Connect places and possibilities
The map sits above Recommended, SideQuests, and Public Transit tabs. I wanted students to move between saved suggestions, group activities, and transit information.
5. Join a SideQuest
Accepting an activity would add someone to its group chat; dismissing it would remove the suggestion. After the activity, the chat would archive from Home and Chats.
6. Add what the group discovers
The plus button would let students contribute recommendations, SideQuests, and notes about navigating the subway. This keeps useful discoveries connected to the group’s plans.
Early concept screens from the three-day exploration. The map and schedule contain placeholder content; planned interactions are described in the callouts. Book spread 18 also records these screens beside my studio notes.
This remains an early concept, and it is a personal project I feel strongly about continuing. I want to return to it for focused research, clearer priorities, and a full interactive prototype, with the possibility of development after that. The brief time I had on the trip gave me a starting point I am motivated to build on.
What I Carry Forward
The book made noticing a way to understand the world.
This project taught me to observe before deciding what a design should become. Plants, buildings, materials, and conversations offered different ways to understand a place. Working across languages also reminded me that my first interpretation is only one perspective, and that shared understanding takes attention.
The book is especially meaningful to me because it expresses that way of seeing through a physical object. Bringing collected materials and interactions into its pages gave the experience a form I could hold and share. I want to carry that same attention into future work across disciplines.