Intercultural Design - Compilation

05.02.2024 - 22.03.2024 / Week 01 - Week 07
Ilhan Rayan bin Khairul Anwar / 0361205
Intercultural Design / Bachelor of Design (Honours) in Creative Media
Project 1, 2, 3 Compilation

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INSTRUCTIONS

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PRACTICAL

Project 1 - Proposal
For our first project, we were tasked with creating a proposal for a design based on the theme of "Cultural Sensitivity in Design." We had to study a cultural phenomenon or a subculture that is perceived as 'sensitive' and frame it within our study. We then had to create a presentable interpretation and adaptation of it without altering the facts in order to raise awareness from the viewers.

Because we didn't have a specific timeframe for our project, I came up with an idea of doing something related to the Japanese invasion of Malaysia since it's a topic deeply sensitive with a lot of the older generations as it drastically affected Malaysia. At the time I thought this was a good idea but looking back I realise that this idea could not have worked well.

Figure 1.1: My first idea (Slideshow)

After I came up with the idea, we were then put into groups based on the current semester we were in and had to discuss our ideas with each other. After some discussion, our group came up with two main ideas as well as a third idea that could potentially work, those being: 

1. Malay Rock Culture

For this idea, we wanted to do a study on Rock Culture in Malaysia as it is a major part in Malaysia's musical history and history in general due to how widespread the genre had become at the time. Along with that, there were a lot of issues with rock culture that carried over to Malaysia such as the idea that it's a violent and satanic genre of music that promotes debauchery which angered government and religious officials.

2. Japanese Otaku Culture

For this idea we wanted to study on the sudden burst of Japanese otaku culture that had appeared in Malaysia in the past few decades, Otaku being a term used to describe people who consume Japanese media such as video games, anime or manga. We felt that this would be an interesting topic to deal with as a lot of the older generations still hold a lot of resentment towards the Japanese due to World War II and were opposed to the idea of Malaysia embracing Japanese culture after what they did.

3. Foreign Culture's Influence on Malaysia 

This topic was our weakest idea but it essentially would have been a study on how much foreign media has influenced and found its way into Malaysia as a whole and how older generations may be opposed to these new trends.

At first, we thought we had to have three different ideas but we eventually came to realise we only needed one idea with three different sub-ideas, so we put it to a vote and decided to do Malay Rock Culture since me and my friend were already familiar with the culture and had people we could talk to for information.

Once this was done, we decided to split our group up with tasks to do for the whole module. Me, Akif, and Omar would work primarily on the slides, Kieran and Alyssa would design and draw out everything, and Eddie would conduct the surveys and interviews. We also agreed to assist each other wherever or whenever we could.

Figure 1.2: Project 1 Design Proposal (PDF)

Project 2 - Field Study

For our Project 2, we were given two weeks to gather data about our chosen culture with relevance to our theme and research objectives. Our requirements were as follows:

• We are required to collect visual, oral, textual and tactile artefacts that would be part of our research materials for the ideation in Project 1 (proposal).
• All collected artefacts and materials must be recorded, kept and documented, accompanied by necessary information such as the type of artefact and material, its purpose, its symbolism, its cultural/historical background, and more, depending on the kind of artefact and material.

Our methods of data collection included observational studies, interviews of relevant stakeholders, and online and/or physical materials related to our topic. Our group decided to go with two methods, a Google form survey and interviews conducted with rock bands since they would be the most optimal way for us to gather data.

Interviews

For our interviews, our teammate Edlin / Eddie was assigned with this task and came to the decision of contacting three modern Malay rock bands, those being The Patriots, TingTongKetz, and Shh... Diam! We were fortunate enough that all of them responded back which led to her conducting an interview with one member from each of their respective bands in their own interview.

We had also planned to visit a rock cafe/showing to interview the bands there. The places we looked into were Merdekarya and Rumah Api, however we got no responses from either of the two locations so we had to unfortunately scrap this plan. Along with that, we had gotten news that Rumah Api got raided by the police due to permit issues as well as residents near the venue complaining of "Satanic" music.

Survey

For our survey, one of our other group members Alyssa created most of the survey along with Eddie who provided her input when she could as she was busy with the interviews.

Link to our survey: A Survey on Rock Culture in Malaysia

Once we had all of our Project 2 data collected, we made a duplicate slideshow to break down the information however we only managed to get around twelve responses so we were limited with our data, but we made do with what we had. Figure 1.3 is our final Data Collection slide deck.

Figure 1.3: Project 2 Field Study / Data Collection (PDF)

Project 3 - Final Project

As stated in the Module Information Booklet, "Upon the completion of the research, data collection, participation in all class lectures and tutorials, presentation of a complete proposal and research data, students are to produce visual design outcomes related to their interpretation of the given theme." We had to utilise the data we collected from Project 2 to produce visual designs that reflect our proposal design and theme. We decided to do two ideas which were a poster design (Idea 1) and clothing design (Idea 3) which would be done by our group members Kieran and Alyssa since they were the ones who offered to do them. I on the other hand worked primarily on the slides as well as contacting our group members on updates.

Figure 1.4: Final T-Shirt Design by Kieran

Figure 1.5: Final Poster Design by Alyssa

Figure 1.6: Project 3 Final Project (PDF)

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REFLECTION

I found this module to be very interesting and surprisingly tough as we were given a short time frame to conduct and perform a lot of tasks that would normally take a lot more time in my opinion. Though I personally enjoyed it as the topic we were doing was something I'm interested in and already had information on it beforehand. It was nice getting to work with students outside of my year as well as getting to see what all the other groups had come up with for their projects since everybody was so different. 

While I was the group leader for this project, I feel like I definitely could have done a lot more work to help out as I mainly worked on the slides and coordinated with our group on what to do. But overall I had a lot of fun with this module, it was nice getting to meet another individual who was also a fan of rock culture and working with my group was really fun for the most part. I do wish we had done this module in a longer semester so we could perform more stuff but I'm fine with what we have.