How do we envision a better future?
Otium is a post growth future community hub, aimed to connect and entertain people where smartphones no longer can.
7 Oct - 6 Dec
Imagination
In a world without fossil fuels, we were asked to reconsider our assigned object, smartphone, and imagine a society that has moved beyond the current economic growth paradigm towards a more desirable future, informed by the principles of post-growth.
Branding
Identity
Communication
Experience
Speculative
To start I did some research into the history of the smartphone and forms of communications. Then I looked into the positive and negative implications of the smartphone, so that we could use any of these ideas for our planning.
For my initial ideas I came up with some ideas for repurposing smartphone boxes, a burrowing station where people in poorer communities who may not have smartphones would gain access to them, and a hub created to replicate the different features of a smartphone.
We chose a target audience of young adults, aiming to use free time more wisely in place of where people would have used phones.
Going off of my hub idea we decided to create a trio of hubs dedicated to using free time in a more productive way, each hub would either be dedicated to learning, community or wellbeing, surrounded by lush forests with opportunities for hiking and gardening.
I created this day in the life comic for our pitch deck, to show what might happen in a day at our hub.
I also made these illustrations for our pitch deck to show the different kinds of activities that would be in the hub.
We decided on the brand name Otium, meaning free time in Latin.
We chose the font Dangsikinktrap, as we felt it would stand out while also being interesting. There is also a soft and round feeling to it which we liked, as we wanted this to represent the shape and feeling of our hubs.
The colour palette that we chose is supoose to represent the passing of time idea that we were aiming for, which ended up looking like a sunset.
We decided to hold a festival for our hub as a brand experience, giving an annual event for people to enjoy and look forward to.
I was tasked with designing merchandise for our festival experience. I started with making a bunch of sketches and presented them to my team so we could narrow them down and change or revise anything.
While trying to come up with my merchandise I also came up with a few pattern ideas, using sketched versions of icons that my teammate Grace made.
I chose a more toned down and simple design for our merchandise and staff assets. They stand out and clearly show the branding while being in line with the other assests that my team created.
I also created an experience image to represent what our festival market may look like, by editing the tops of the tents and changing the colour of a few shirts to be in brand colours.
Our post growth future idea worked well for a replacement for the smartphone, and our overall theme of using time more wisely really worked with our branding. The experience we made fit with our smartphone idea, of different events catered to each aspect of a phone such as, tutorials, games, connectivity and more. Although we probably could have made that connection more clear while we were presenting as Imagination were slightly confused as to where that connection was.
My outcomes fit in perfectly with the branding our team came up with, and I really enjoyed all my different sketches for design pathways, and when presenting at Imagination they said they really liked the merchandise design, despite wanting to see more.
The chance to also present at imagination was a huge honour and a great experience as well, which will help me with my pitches in the future.
I am really happy with our brand and our final outcomes, both individually and as a team. I really enjoyed this project despite being nervous at the prospect of working with new people, if it wasn't for this I probably never would have talked to them and I'm really grateful for the opportunity because I loved this project.
