This project was a lot of fun for me. The way I tackled this problem was that I first thought of a theme. I need some sort of boundary, so I came up with the 7 deadly sins. But, I didn’t just want to do the 7 deadly sins, because it’s been done over and over. So I wanted to twist the concept a bit. When you think of a sin, like gluttony, the polar opposite of that sin could also be really bad in itself. Eating in moderation is fine, but eating so little to point of anorexia is probably not the healthiest way to eat. So, I guess the point of the whole concept is to show moderation. Take the middle path.

I thought about the opposite of the sins and called them “virtues,” and twisted them. All my projects share the same theme of “twisted virtues,” but each project has been executed differently.

ENVY CONFIDENCE

The first sin I thought about was “envy.” The opposite of “envy” would be something like “confidence.” Then I thought what if someone was over-confident, maybe to the point of vanity? That’s not really a good thing either. So I made a hat out of found objects in my apartment that would allow people to look at themselves the whole time they’re wearing the hat. I basically attached a mirror to a hat that you could reposition to better view yourself.

PRIDE SELF-ESTEEM

This sin was a little confusing but the twisted virtue was “low self-esteem.” Then I thought about the people whose self-esteem was so low, that perhaps they wanted to commit suicide, or had tried to commit suicide before. I chose to make a noose as a representation of suicide. A symbol. I then spray-painted the noose black and red to show the darkness and sadness around the idea of suicide.

WRATH HAPPINESS

“Wrath” is a sin, but happiness is a good thing. A state we all wish to achieve. But some people are so desperate to achieve this state of happiness that they take drugs like anti-depressants to reach this state. I’m not talking about people who really need to take anti-depressants, but I’m more speaking about those who take anti-depressants to deal with every day stress, or those who take them recreationally. For this part of the 7×7, I made a processing sketch. The sketch has an emoticon bouncing around, and when you feed the emoticon an anti-depressant (like Paxil), the emoticon becomes happy.

finding-happiness

GLUTTONY ABSTEMIOUSNESS

For “gluttony,” I thought about people who eat so little, that it’s unhealthy. For this part of the 7×7, I fasted for one day. I wanted to see what it felt like to deprive myself of something I loved so much. On the scale, I probably fall closer to being a glutton than an ascetic. I kept a video blog throughout the day talking about how I felt.

http://vimeo.com/28964455

GREED CHARITABLENESS

This execution falls off the realm of the concept. My original idea had been to donate to non-charitable causes. For example, only donate money to people who outright admitted that they only wanted the money to buy booze. Basically, donate money to non-charitable causes. However, I only encountered people who really seemed to need the money. So instead, I decided that I would donate $5 to each person who had a sign or a cup that indicated that they were asking for money, in exchange for their stories. I then built a website to document the project and their fascinating stories.

http://lovepaweena.com/namesbehindfaces/

LUST DISGUST

For this part, I thought about some of my friends who are so desperate to get married, yet are so picky. They have in their minds a set laundry list of every trait their potential  mate has to meet, and if their potential mate doesn’t meet their expectations, they act almost disgusted by these people. So, I designed a social networking iPad app for extremely picky individuals.

The user would be able select which traits they desire in their potential mate, or add their own.

The app would match these traits to a potential mate. The potential mate who most closely matches the user’s laundry list would be in a bigger circle closest to you.

The user can then view the potential mate’s profile. If the user doesn’t like the potential mate, they can just flick them off the screen, disgustedly, to make them go away forever. The person they picked will never again show up in their matches.

SLOTH INDUSTRY

The execution for this sin was purely for entertainment purposes only. I thought it would be a fun way to end such a dark presentation. However, it still goes with the theme. The opposite of a sloth would be a hard worker. When I presented this execution, I said, “Working hard is good, but not if you work so hard that you don’t sleep, and you don’t eat, or you might end up looking like this.” Then I showed my self-portrait that I created in Photoshop because I hadn’t been eating or sleeping in days. I was a representation of what I was trying to portray with industriousness.

This project was very difficult for me. Right now as a designer, I’m struggling to do things that are “off-the-screen,” and I realize that I could’ve done something “off-the-screen,” but my thought process is to automatically think of screen-based designs. I thought and thought for so long how I can connect people without using the internet, so I thought about phones, snail mail, things we used to do before the internet was all up in your face.

Also, I need to set limitations for myself. I thought I wanted to create a way for locals to hook up with travelers. Based on personal experience, I would love to meet locals to show me all the cool spots, and just give me advice about the places I’m traveling to. My initial thought was that it’d be cool to place pseudo mailboxes all over the world where people could pick up and drop off real postcards to places they want to go. But what if the postcards never get picked up? Or they get picked up and the traveler has already come and gone? I couldn’t figure out the logic even though I tried and tried, so I ended up going screen-based again – much to my disappointment. But I shouldn’t create something non screen-based just for the sake of it. Sometimes it just makes more sense to design something on-screen, and use that tool because it is the best available tool for what you are trying to do.

So, I came up with a website, a very simple website, called “journeyers.com.” The website would be invite-only for the safety aspects of this site.

People would sign on, and then they could do one of two things – send a postcard or pick up a postcard.

How I imagine this site to function, is people would then select a postcard to send.

Then the person would write on the postcard. They can write whatever they want, just like real postcards. They can also write the activities in which they want to participate in when they visit these countries.

And then you would send your virtual postcard.

To pick up a postcard, the process would be very similar. The user would log-in, select “Get a postcard,” then choose a postcard of a person they’re interested in meeting. Perhaps the user would choose the person based on shared interests – they see that a traveler wants to go a place where they love to go. Or it could be based on appearances. Or the user can see that the traveler is from New York, and perhaps that local has lived in New York before, so they want to select that person. As a designer, I don’t know all the reasons why someone would choose one postcard over another. Because of that, the “Choose postcard” page would have all sorts of information available to the person who is selecting a postcard, or essentially, a person to hang out with.

After selecting a postcard, the user can then read the postcard and decide whether or not they want to contact that individual.

Also, the website’s simplicity in design is intended. I’ve seen many social networking sites where I’m not sure what to do. So by having only two functions, I feel as if it would be easier to navigate the site.