Art Direction / Project 1

on
07.10.2025 - 18.11.2025 (Week 3 - Week 9)
Ng Kar Yee / 0367743
Bachelor of Design (Honours) in Creative Media
Art Direction / Project 1

INTRODUCTION

PROJECT 1⇒ ART DIRECTION IDEATION

For project 1, Mr Kamal introduced Art Direction Ideation to us where we need to define a 
creative solution for community impact. This project aims to develop a strategic and creative art direction concept that responds to a real-world community problem aligned with one or more United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

For this project, we are required to form a group and collaborate across disciplines (UI/UX, Graphic Design, Digital Animation, Entertainment Design, Immersive Design) to explore how art direction and visual storytelling can create social, cultural, or environmental impact.

EXERCISE INSTRUCTIONS

WEEK 3

After receiving a brief overview of the project from Mr. Kamal, we proceeded to form our groups. My friends, Hui Yi, Melvin and I came together to form a team of three and started brainstorming possible directions and ideas for the project. 

IDEATION

Each of us contributed 2 ideas based on our interests and strengths, and this helped us build a pool of potential themes to explore. 

Figure 1.0 Ideation Process (Pls Refer To Miro Board For A Clearer View)

After researching, I proposed 2 ideas.

Idea 1: Rebranding Smell as Heritage

ScentVault is a cultural preservation brand that archives and celebrates unique smells tied to memory and identity (e.g., kopi o, satay smoke, incense, rain on hot ground). It reframes smell from being “secondary” to being a key part of cultural heritage.

Most cultural branding and heritage campaigns focus on visuals (costume, architecture, symbols) or sound (music, language). Smell, despite being one of the most powerful triggers of memory, is overlooked and undervalued. As cities modernize, iconic scents of traditional foods, markets, and rituals risk being lost. The challenge would probably be how do we rebrand smell as a vital piece of cultural identity?

Idea 2: Rebranding Waiting Time

Transform the negative perception of waiting time into a positive lifestyle moment by creating “Queue Buddy,” a playful brand mascot and experience that reframes queues as opportunities for creativity, mindfulness, or micro-connection.

In modern society, waiting (at bus stops, train stations, checkout lines, lifts) is seen as wasted, frustrating, or boring time. With smartphones, most people fill these moments with passive scrolling, which can increase stress, anxiety, and digital fatigue. The challenge would be how can we rebrand waiting time as valuable and meaningful?

While for Hui Yi and Melvin, they proposed,

Idea 3: Emoji Culture and Semantic Collapse

Develop “EMO:TION,” a conceptual brand or platform that exposes the shifting, contradictory meanings of emojis across generations and cultures. Each emoji is presented with both its “official” Unicode meaning and its ironic reinterpretation in digital subcultures, highlighting communication breakdown in online life.

Emojis were introduced as a universal visual language for emotional expression. However, their meanings have become unstable. Generational gaps, cultural context, and social media trends create semantic collapse, where the same emoji can hold opposite connotations. For example, 🙃 has shifted from playful to ironic, 💀 from literal death to “laughing to death,” and 🙏 from prayer to thanks or a high five. This instability reflects both the richness and fragility of digital communication.

Idea 4: The Hidden Cost of Procrastination

This project explores procrastination as a harmful behavioural pattern that undermines productivity, increases stress, and negatively impacts mental health. Instead of romanticising or normalising it, the project aims to expose procrastination as a hidden cost in modern digital life and visualise its consequences in a way that provokes awareness and behavioural change.

Procrastination is often dismissed as laziness, but it has serious consequences. It leads to stress, missed deadlines, reduced performance, and long-term harm to mental health. In today’s digital world of constant notifications and endless scrolling, procrastination is amplified, creating cycles of avoidance, guilt, and anxiety. The challenge is how to make these hidden costs visible so that people recognise procrastination as a serious problem, not a harmless habit.

Idea 5: Late Sleeping / Staying Up Late at Night

The project explores the lifestyle trend of staying awake deep into the night, particularly among youth and young adults, highlighting the tension between digital culture, productivity, and health.

With rapid technological advancement, smartphones, laptops, and constant online connectivity have become an inseparable part of modern life. This has disrupted natural sleep cycles—leading to unhealthy habits such as late-night scrolling, binge-watching, and overworking. Over time, this results in physical (fatigue, reduced immunity) and mental (stress, lower focus) health issues.

Idea 6: Silent Loneliness in Urban Living

Despite being surrounded by thousands of people in bustling cities, many individuals feel emotionally disconnected. This project explores the paradox of living in hyper-connected urban environments while experiencing deep isolation.

In modern cities, digital communication often replaces real human connection, and fast-paced lifestyles reduce opportunities for genuine social bonds. Young professionals, students, and elderly city dwellers experience loneliness in silence — hidden behind busy schedules, crowded transport, and social media. Unlike rural or communal societies, urban loneliness is invisible yet persistent, impacting mental health, productivity, and quality of life.

We continued by researching the background of these ideas, focusing especially on their visual style, art direction, and relevance to our scope. At the same time, we looked into the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) to understand which issues were meaningful and suitable for our concept.

WEEK 4

After reviewing our initial findings, we discussed and filtered our ideas into remaining 2, which is between idea 1 and idea 3. We consulted Mr Kamal on both ideas and he favor idea 3 which is Emoji Culture and Semantic Collapse more. Once our direction was confirmed, we moved on to curating moodboards and gathering visual references to define the tone, colour palette, and style that we wanted to achieve as it helped us visualise the atmosphere of our project more clearly. We decided to take a more simplistic and minimalistic approach.  

MOODBOARD FOR OVERALL ART DIRECTION

Figure 1.1 Moodboard

Besides, we divided the responsibilities for the proposal document to ensure that everyone had a focused role. 

Responsible Task For Written Proposal (PDF – max 1,000 words)

  1. Project title & team members - Karyee
  2. Selected SDG(s) and related community problem - Karyee
  3. Problem statement & supporting research - Huiyi
  4. Why this issue matters locally/globally - Melvin
  5. Proposed creative solution & art direction rationale - Huiyi
  6. Unique Selling Proposition (USP) - Melvin
  7. Target audience profile - Melvin
  8. Defined output (product, medium, format) - Karyee
  9. Supporting visuals (sketches, reference images, or moodboard encouraged) - All
We also started exploring fonts that could potentially match the identity we were building, marking the early stages of our design language development.

Figure 1.2 Font Exploration

WEEK 5

Throughout Week 5, we focused heavily on progressing with the proposal document while simultaneously beginning to prepare the slide deck. Everyone continued contributing their assigned sections, and we worked together to ensure the content remained aligned with our concept. 

In parallel, our visual exploration grew more active as we finalised our font options with Rokkit as our heading font and Montserrat as our body font.

Figure 1.3 Finalised Font

Hui Yi as our head illustrator and art direction lead also finalised our overall colour palette.

Figure 1.4 Finalised Colour Palette

We then continued experimenting, specifically Hui Yi on the logo ideas, Melvin on the website exploration and me on the early concepts for our card game. These explorations marked the moment when our project started transitioning from conceptual planning into the early phases of production output.

WEEK 6

Our written proposal and slide deck continued taking shape this week as we refined the content and began tightening the structure. Alongside the documentation work, we also spent time sketching visuals for the logo, website, and card game. Hui Yi also began sketching our mascot, adding another layer to the visual identity of the project and giving us a character that represents the tone and message we aim to convey.

LOGO

Figure 1.5 Done By Hui Yi

WEBSITE

Figure 1.6 Sketch By Melvin
Figure 1.7 Lo-fi By Melvin

CARD GAME

For my side, the card game mechanics, gameplay structure, and rules were discussed thoroughly and finalised as a team, ensuring that the game experience was clear and consistent. After finalising the overall game mechanics, I process on preparing the game contents and the game rules.
Figure 1.7 Power Card & Emoji Card Contents

Figure 1.8 Scenario Card Content

After setting down all the content and the rules for the card game, I moved on on creating the lo-fi for the card game. I set the card size of our card game exactly the same as a Uno card game size and follow our project colour palette in designing.

Figure 1.9  Lo-fi In Progress

WEEK 7

This week was mainly focused on polishing and refining. We carefully proofread the proposal document and strengthened the clarity and flow of the slide deck to ensure it communicated our ideas effectively. 

On the production side, we finalised our logo and Hui Yi sketched a few mascot ideas.

LOGO & MASCOT


Figure 2.0 Finalised Logo Done By Hui Yi

Figure 2.1 Mascot Sketch By Hui Yi

WEBSITE

Melvin started exploring on the hi-fi of the website.

Figure 2.2 Hi-fi Exploration By Melvin

CARD GAME

For the card game, we printed our first lo-fi prototype of the card game. Seeing the physical version helped us understand the layout, scale, interaction flow, and overall usability, allowing us to imagine how players would engage with the game.

Figure 2.3 Printed Out Lo-fi

After printing them out, Melvin and I spent 3 to 4 hours to manually cut them out one by one. I think there was about 200 to 300 cards in total.

Figure 2.4 After 3-4 Hours Of Cutting

Figure 2.5 Final Printed Lo-fi Look

WEEK 8

As we moved into the final stages, we completed and refined both the slide deck and the proposal document, making sure everything was consistent and presentable. Each group member also worked on their personal e-portfolio blog to document their roles, reflections, and individual contributions. 

We conducted our first round of card game testing with Mr Kamal during this week, which gave us valuable insights into the strengths, weaknesses, and potential improvements of the gameplay experience.

Figure 2.6 First Game Testing

WEEK 9

The final week was dedicated to checking all tasks and deliverables one last time. We reviewed every section of the proposal, the slide deck, and the early production outputs to ensure cohesion and completeness. After confirming that everything met the project requirements, we submitted our work through MyTimes and prepared for our presentation. This week marked the completion of our documentation and early production phase, closing the first chapter of our design process and setting the stage for the development work that follows.

FINAL WRITTEN REPORT

FINAL WEEKLY PROJECT MANAGEMENT REPORT

FINAL PRESENTATION DECK

Art Direction by Rainn

LINK TO GOOGLE DRIVE SUBMISSION (DOC / PDF)

LINK TO MIRO BOARD (MOODBOARD, VISUALS & ELABORATIONS)

LINK TO FIGMA (LO-FI & EXPLORATIONS)

FEEDBACK

WEEK 4

  • Both ideas looks very interesting
  • Maybe the emoji one would be most interesting

WEEK 5

  • Overall art direction and colour palette are good 
  • Simplistic and minimalistic approved

WEEK 6

  • Overall production part seem good and on track
  • Focus more on the documentation part and the weekly project management report

WEEK 7

  • Website and logo looks fine

WEEK 8

  • Card game's gameplay is interesting
  • Proceed more on the art guide part

REFLECTION

Throughout this project, I gained a clearer understanding of how a project develops from initial brainstorming to structured planning and early production work. Moving through each phase with my group helped me see how research, concept refinement, and visual exploration gradually shape a cohesive direction. Establishing our idea, studying SDG-related issues, and creating mood boards strengthened my ability to analyse information and translate it into meaningful design decisions.

As the workload expanded, I learned how to manage multiple tasks simultaneously, from drafting the proposal and preparing the slide deck to exploring fonts, logos, website layouts, and card game concepts. Working on sketches, prototypes, and documentation taught me the importance of consistency, clarity, and iteration—especially during the physical testing of our lo-fi card game, where real user interaction revealed areas for improvement that were not obvious on screen. This period also strengthened my attention to detail and helped me communicate ideas more effectively across different formats.

Throughout the project, structured teamwork played a major role in my growth. Coordinating responsibilities, supporting one another during deadlines, and making collective decisions under time pressure improved my communication, adaptability, and collaboration skills. Overall, the experience enhanced my understanding of design workflow and real-world production structure while helping me develop stronger planning, creative thinking, and organisational abilities.

CHALLENGES FACED AND ACTION PLAN TO RESOLVE

Throughout the development of this project, the team encountered several challenges that shaped the direction and pace of our workflow. One of the earliest issues we faced was the difficulty in aligning our initial ideas with specific UNSDG targets. Although our concepts were creative, ensuring they carried meaningful educational value required deeper research and multiple rounds of refinement. This uncertainty slowed the early conceptual phase as we struggled to find a balance between creativity and purpose. Another challenge emerged when we attempted to merge educational content with enjoyable gameplay and engaging visuals. We often found ourselves adjusting interactions and ideas to avoid making the project feel too heavy with information or, on the opposite extreme, too light and lacking substance. Achieving this balance required repeated discussions, feedback loops, and testing to understand what worked best.

Beyond conceptual challenges, managing this module alongside other ongoing assignments became one of the most demanding aspects of the process. As deadlines from different subjects overlapped, coordinating time and effort across tasks grew increasingly difficult. The weight of multiple submissions caused time pressure and fatigue within the team, making it clear that a more structured approach to planning and workload distribution was necessary. These overlapping commitments influenced our progress, and at times, delayed parts of our production and refinement stages.

To resolve these issues, the team implemented several strategies to regain clarity and momentum. We revisited the UNSDG framework and broke it down into smaller, more tangible objectives that could be directly mapped to our project outcomes. This helped us make clearer decisions and strengthened the purpose of our concept. To balance educational value with fun, we adopted an iterative approach where ideas were tested, refined, and adjusted based on team feedback. Our card game mechanics, website direction, and overall art style were gradually improved to ensure learning elements were present without overwhelming the experience. Finally, to manage workload more effectively, we reorganised tasks into smaller sections and created a shared timeline with weekly checkpoints. This allowed us to monitor progress more consistently and distribute responsibilities more evenly, enabling the team to stay on track despite external academic pressures.

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