Intercultural Design : Introduction

Intercultural Designs

Date : Jan/10/2023

Name : Mabuchi Arata

Lecture : Video and Sound Production

Lecturer's name : Martin Chong Yuh Lin

ID : 0351579 

1, Introduction

From This week, I am oing to learn about intercultural design. First of all, intercultural design is about module abou way to design things to provide any message or guide for either any physical products or ant digital media for local/global society (This is what I've got in online so far in 10/1/2023).

We're going to learn intercultural design in this semester 2,5.

2, Project 1

In the first week, I've got introduction about this intercultural design. As I've got in the previous research before this lecture, it is all about providing any design ideas for given theme by researching it with teams, the general idea itself was "Visualism - Visual Culture". We need to research about given topic and generate ideas for this theme. The way to introduce the idea is going to be Digital PDF file of 200 words defining and interpreting theme in relation to the chosen cultural elements, make sure to get at least 3 ideas with detailed informations.Picture credits and reference list is also required. In this project, I am going to do it with by my own with lecturer's help. (Usually this project is held with group) 

In this roject, I have made 5 poddible ideas for this cultural project as shown below.

1, Chinese culture impact on Malaysia

As you may know, there are many Chinese Malaysian people in Malaysia. They are descendants of 19~20th century’s labor who came from Malaysia as traders, laborers or miners when Malaysia was a British colony. They made a unique culture in Malaysia. I’d like to create Website/Video work to promote Chinese Malaysian culture.

2, Cultural impact of Buddhism (in Japan or Thailand) 

I was living in Japan for 10 years. Japanese traditional culture and society has been influenced by Buddhism since the 6th century, however, Japanese Buddhism has been changed from Chinese Buddhism. The Buddhism culture itself has been changed through culture and history. I suggest making a booklet to explain the differences and impact of Buddhism around the world. (The main problem of this project is it may just be spotting the difference game of Asian culture.)

3, Simple, but understandable

The iconic image can be used as a telling message instead of using the text.  The advantage of using symbols is that even people who don't understand the words can understand the meaning, however, the color itself may have a different meaning depending on the different culture or country, additionally, too much simplified image may cause hard to understand or impossible to identify meaning. I suggest creating a slide to collect simplified symbols and collect ideas about the ideas to tell the message with simplified images.

4, Introducing Subang Jaya

As you may know, the place where Taylor’s university exists is Subang Jaya in Selangor, however, most people don't know about what’s in Subang Jaya. In this project, I’ll introduce a map or booklet to represent a nice location in Selangor to love Selangor much more.

5, Malaysian calendar

Malaysia is the country where the three different cultures are mixed together to make a unique culture, so there are many different event based on the different society (Indian, Malay and Chinese), however most of people (especially people from foreign countries) doesn’t know the schedule of each event happening in Malaysia, therefore I introduce a calendar to express every event happening for whole year 2023 in Malaysia for foreign countries. The size of the calendar is going to be small as booklet or capable to put on a desk.

In this module, I desiced to create "Malaysian calendar to explain celebration day". Ms.Noranis Ismail told me that "explain each level of the design system according to the topic".

In the cultural design, There is a pyramid of level of design for cultural design, In this cultural design topic, make a presentation about promoting idea about your visual solution based on your own topic includes make sure that using 200 words, evidence, visual reference and credits.

First of all, I need to explain each level of design ideas for my chosen topic. The main point I think for this work is that finding proper ideas and references for my chosen visual solution invluding cultural situation, or a particular subculture, and “frame” for my research, but in my theme (Malaysian National even through ayear) I need to firstly research, I need to firstly research each level of design first, then I need to start researching Malaysian event and Malaysian calendar.

Level design system

In the level of design, the lecturer gave us very useful diagram for us.

As you may seen from this diagram, I need to plan different ideas for different level in a pyramid. Basically, there are three main different layer exist, Basic assumptions, Norms and values and Artifacts and products. Rather than taking long time to discover ideas for each layer for my project, (This is because all my effort I've done ao far was erased mistakenly...) I am going to type each layer's idea for my project shortly with brief explanation. 

Before the planning design system here, I am going to explain about the structure of teh pyramid of Design system. Basic assumption is the main purpose of the project, I need to explain why the project can solve some particular cultural issues, then Norms & values is the detailed idea about the representation method you'd like to do in the project. In other words to explain, it is all about the method or particular ideas for my main ideas for visual solution. Finally, Artifact and products is the particular / detailed goal for the project, the ideas of point you notice in the layer "Morms and values" must apply in this layer's products. In my project, my main objective is creting a calendar for foreigners to explaine aboust the coltutal event in the year 2023(2022?). 

Once I decided brief ideas related all provided point of view, I can finally pkan what do fo and how to complete, but before to do that, I am going to take a notes about the points for each layer of design system pyramid (in other words, I need to identify the point/method to identif the detail of my project.)

1, Basic assumptions

This is about cultural function, basically, I need to focus about cultural element that you wantg to solve by using any visual element for this project. Ms.Noranis Ismail suggest the idea about "japanese festivities" and then I inspired from that idea to have a visual solution for "Malaysian Event". The reaso why I choose this (I leave this text for preparing to answer why I choose this idea just in case) is because I have been living in Malaysia for over 8 years but I still don't know about the Malaysian cultural event so much, therefore I promote to make a desktop calendar for foreigners to explain about Malaysian cultural event through a year.

2, Norms and values

This may be seen difficult, but it is just about design language (way to representation things) for work of visual solution. This is like a observation of basic assumptions come up in the previous phase to get deeper ideas for final output.

In the previous phase, I suggest the idea "representing Malaysian cultural event by making a calendar", therefore I need to come up the idea to represent each Malaycian cultural event for foreigners. I already come up the plan for these ideas as shown below. :

・Way to represent : Visual image or photograph, I also need to research different religion in Malaysia and different colour impressions for them.

・Calendar format : Based on Western calendar goes from upper left tobottom right.

・Size : Capable to place on desk.

・Calendar format : To represent every month's Malaysian cultural event, every month is going to be separated.

・Calendar layout : o avoid viewer's comfusion, Every page of the calender is going to be same, however, the format itself is going to be consider later.

3, Artifacts

This is just explaining about tools for this project, of course I'm just going to explain about the details of my calendar from tools I am going to use and way to produce my calendar. I actially have no plan how I am going o make a calendar, this is because I don't know yet about the way to prent out on cardboard, on the other hand, I mainly use Malaysian books and internet to research malaysian cultural event, also I mainly use email for interview if I need to interview for each event.