Intercultural Design

06/02/2025 – 21/03/2025 (Week 1 – Week 7)
Raida Abdoul Kader / 0353038
Intercultural Design / Bachelor of Mass Communication / School of Media and Communication
Project 1 (Proposal) and Project 2 (Field Study)

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TABLE OF CONTENT

1. Instruction

2. Lectures & Learning Process

3. Feedback

4. Reflection

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1. INSTRUCTION

Fig. 1.1. Module information Booklet

2. LECTURES & LEARNING PROCESS

Week 1 (Module Introduction)

Online lecture

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Culture and design are inherently linked, and as aspiring designers, it's essential to understand this connection.

Visual Informative Culture: Visuals serve as a highly influential medium to convey much of the information we encounter. Visual culture involves analyzing visual objects beyond their textual interpretations.

Visual: This encompasses anything that can be perceived through sight, including both nature and human-made creations. To be classified as visual, these elements must have a functional, meaningful, and communicative purpose.
A good example of intercultural design is tattoos. For sailors, tattoos often symbolize a journey or serve as a tribute to loved ones, whereas in Japanese culture, tattoos have a more traditional significance, often reflecting societal status, such as among the Yakuza.

Week 2 (Research Method)

Lecture: Everyday Design (KL Design Festival)
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Everyday design influences how we interact with objects and spaces, focusing on usability, aesthetics, and problem-solving. Effective design is intuitive, accessible, and efficient. When done well, good design becomes seamless and unnoticed. By prioritizing user experience, everyday design plays a crucial role in enhancing efficiency.

Fig. 2.1. Kuala Lumpur Design Festival Website

Week 3 (Proposal Presentation)

Our Group members:

1) Shannen Hiew Kar Yee ( 0354055 ) - Group Leader
2) Raida Abdoul Kader ( 0353038 ) 
3) Sacha Poetry Pradhani ( 0371796 ) 
4) Shema Goldie Angwen ( 0372129 )
5) Valerius Ethan Wirawan ( 0372774 )
6) Zhou Yi ( 0375264 ）

We have successfully compiled our ideas for the task. Our project focuses on integrating African culture into everyday design. To enhance its impact, we are conceptualizing a collaboration with Tyla, incorporating African cultural elements into her merchandise, celebrating her heritage in a modern and stylish way.

Fig. 2.2. Whatsapp screen capture: Idea building (brainstorming)

After consulting with our lecturer, we revised our approach. The collaboration with Tyla was deemed unnecessary, and our initial idea of incorporating African beads and patterns into a wallet was rejected. In response, we developed a new product and designed it accordingly.

Fig. 2.3. Whatsapp screen capture: Task distribution

Me and Monday (Zhou Yi) collaborate to design the blanket. It is taken from the symbol mmeramutene representing warmness and sunlight, in adtion to the orange colour.

Fig. 2.4. Proposal Presentation

Fig. 2.5. Proposal Presentation File (PDF)

Week 4 (Data Collection)

We created a Google Form to gather insights on society's awareness of African cultures and their meanings. Additionally, we asked participants about the significance of cultural appreciation in society.

Fig. 2.6.Whatsapp screen capture: Data Collection Progress

Week 5 (Data Compilation)

We conduct data collection by google forms as a survey media. These are the questions that we used in the google forms titled 'International Awareness of African Culture':

1. What’s your nationality?

2. Have you heard about Maasai, Hadza or Samburu culture?

3. We’ve used pink colour to design one of our product, do you know what is the meaning behind it?

4. We’ve used this symbol to design one of our product, do you know what is the meaning behind it? 

5. How often do you use mirror, blanket and book in a day to day basis?

6. Have you ever seen or often seen African culture applied on products? 

7. Do you think it’s crucial to spread awareness of your own culture?

We compile all of the data in a presentation slide.

Fig. 2.7.Whatsapp screen capture: Data Compilation Progress

Fig. 2.8. Data Compilation (PDF)

After do the data collection, we did the summary of the answer and proceed to make tiktok video.

Week 6 (Self Directed) & Week 7 (Final Project Presentation)

Our Final task on Week 6 and Week 7 was to document and share our insights on everyday design through a TikTok page by creating short videos to engage and inform a wider audience.

Fig. 2.9. TikTok Account Page (cultureflex)

During Week 6, our group finalized the TikTok video theme after a group meeting and we also had a consultation session on Thursday to confirm our concept. At the end of Week 6, we all completed recording and editing each other's videos.

In Week 7, our main focus was to post all the TikToks. The videos reflect our research and interactions with everyday design and a what we learned about West African culture. 

@cultureflex5

Do you know there are many colours that are used in waist beads ? AND FUN FACT ALL OF THEM HAVE MEANINGS BEHIND IT !!! Here are some of the colours and meaning behind it ! #waistbeads #cultureflex

♬ original sound - cultureflex - cultureflex

Fig. 3 TikTok Video (cultureflex) 

Finally by the end of Week 7, we uploaded all the videos and created a presentation deck to compile our research, data collection, and progress for our last submission.

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3. FEEDBACK

Week 6 

In week 6 feedback, we had an online consultation with Mr. Asrizal via teams. We showed him our tiktok page that we made as well as the video that we have produced. Overall, Mr. Asrizal did not have any serious comments about, he said what we did was fine only that we need to add more graphics into the video as well as make the cover page catchy. 

Week 5 

For this week's feedback, we showed sir our data collection slide that wasn't completely complete since we were all quite confused with the artifact part. Sir gave us his honest feedback on our slide and apparently we were doing the slide in the wrong format so, sir gave us a clear instruction on how to do the slide and we completed the slide perfectly. 

Week 4 

We did our mock up sketches for this week and had Mr. Asrizal to comment about our sketches. Sir said that our sketches are all good to go but the theme was everyday design therefore the product we choose must be something that is used everyday for example a shirt. That is all for the feedback in week 4. 

Week 3 

This week, we did our first presentation slide which was our proposal slide. After we were done with the slide, we present it to Mr. Asrizalas well as we informed him that we were no longer combining 2 cultures together and he just told us there were some parts that were missing in our slides and it was fine if we just want to focus on 1 culture. After the feedback, we immediately added those missing information in the slide.

Week 2 

For week 2 consultation session, we had all our ideas ready for what we wanted to do for this task. The feedback that we got for this week from Mr. Asrizal was that our idea was a good idea to combine 2 cultures together and design a product with it. 

Week 1 

For week 1, there was no feedback because it was a class where we were briefed and introduced to our module and what the task was about.

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4. REFLECTION

This module has helped me a lot in understanding everyday design. Combining a culture with an everyday design was both insightful and challenging. At the beginning, I was a bit stressed because I had no clue on how we would approach this, especially when looking at last semester's work. However, as we started to do our research, we found some interesting aspects of West Africa, such as the unique Adinkra symbols, waist beads and their various colors.

One thing that really sparked my curiosity during our research on beads in West Africa was the fact that each color held to a different meaning, and it served as a way of expressing emotions within certain cultures. I also learned that West African and Bornean cultures shared some similarities when it came to beads, which I found really interesting because they are so far apart.

Throughout this semester, I also learned the importance of effective communication. The language barrier was sometimes a big challenge for us, but our effort and patience with each other allowed us to  work efficiently and make good progress.

In the end, we were able to create some nice designs: a blanket, a journal, and a mirror. We decided to go with the mirror design, which I truly liked. Overall, this was a great experience, and I had the chance to collaborate with great people.