Actively observing allows the observer to catch comparably trivial details that could have been brushed off if looked passively. Active looking is often conjoined with emotions that are integrated in the act of observing. For example, it is easy to be emerged in the feeling of contentment, jolliness, and nostalgia while looking at pictures from the past and reminiscing on childhood memories. My observation of childhood pictures, packaging of a ketchup, and alarm clock brought about various feelings that lead to different questions and innovative ideas that lead to proposals of new projects.
Observation of childhood pictures
Description
After quarantine began, my mom started a small project on her own of organizing and collecting all of the photographs and videos she took of me since the digital camera was invented. When she gave me the USB with all the files inside them, I shortly traveled back in time all the way to 2004 and glided through my childhood all the way until now.
Visual process material
Questions & Reasons of interest
- What is the psychological correlation between the reminiscence of past memories and the common feeling of nostalgia that people feel regarding such experience? & A lot of people experience a similar feeling of nostalgia when thinking or talking about past memories.
- Is my earliest memory real or is it generated from stories I heard from my parents? & I have an idea about my earliest memory but I feel like I was too young to remember the details of it.
- Why is it that sometimes a distant past is easier to remember than the near past? & I can’t remember what I did on March 16th of 2020, but I can vividly remember what I did on May 16th of 2018.
Further approach
I can scavenge through articles or research papers about how memories are generated and preserved.
Packaging of a ketchup
Description
When I took a ketchup out of our refrigerator to squeeze it on a corn dog, a child-like packaging caught my attention. The packaging had an image of a smiley face drawn with the ketchup itself. I thought that such packaging would draw parents’ and children’s attention. This made me rethink about the relationship between packaging and consumerism.
Visual process material
Questions & Reasons of interest
- How can designers define the interrelation between packaging and consumerism? & I want to become a branding director in the future and I thought that looking deeper into this question would help me a lot.
- To what extent should a packaging think about the target audience more than the color of the artist himself or herself? & I feel like this is an ongoing struggle for a lot of the designers.
- What can be some aspects of packaging that will catch the audience’s attention? & This will be helpful for designing packagings that will be commonly likable.
Further-approach
I can look into interviews of branding directors and research about the process and practices of branding and marketing. I can look into different types of packagings that reached a wide audience and speculate the original characteristics of them.
Alarm clock
Description
Alarm clock seemed to be such a quotidian and mundane item in my room. However, as I observed it and contemplated about it a little more, I realized how important it is. It helps me manage my time just by letting me know it is time to wake up and start my day. Inspired by such different point of view on an object that seemed so trivial before, I wrote a poem about it.
Visual process material
Time
Though time never stops
Though people age
Our shared dreams
Like the starry night
Will shine my only heart
Though lives can get busy
Though dreams may be forgotten
Our melodic dreams
Like a song of joy
Will fill my only heart
Questions & Reasons of interest
- Can we say that we are wasting time or does every single second of the day have meaning behind it? & It is so easy to waste time in times like this.
- What can happen if clocks did not exist? & I realized the importance of clocks as I observed my alarm clock.
- Why is it important to live a routinely life? & Success people have self-control over time and live a routinely schedule.
Further-approach
I can interview different age groups and people with different occupation about their thoughts on time, wasting time, and living a routinely life.
