Intercultural Design / Project 3

1.7.2022 - 1.18.2022 (Week 6 - Week 7)

Audrey Gracia Djohari / 0348120
Intercultural Design
Bachelor of Design (Hons) in Creative Media / Taylor’s University

Project 3: Final Project

INSTRUCTION

PROJECT 3

WEEK 6

Group Members

Group 1
Evaleez Voo
Audrey Gracia Djohari
Esther Vanessa
Arwinda Nurul Izza
Ataka Lukman
Theme: Purpose

Topic: Rapping

Rationale Recap

In our 200-word rationale, we spoke about how rap culture emerged from the NYC in the early 1970s. From the start, rap has always had the purpose of expressing an individual's thoughts through lyrics, whether it be on their own experiences or their environment and what they see on a daily basis.

Our aim was to explore its form of expression in other communities outside of NYC, while also understanding the purpose and beliefs behind the culture itself. If successful, we wanted to support the rap community to go forward with their purpose in hand.

WEEK 7-8

Final Output Process

Phase 1

Summarization of data from interviews, online resources and surveys.
Outcome: We understood how individuals use rap as an output to express their thoughts and emotions. Letting themselves be heard.

Phase 2
Revision of proposed ideas from before and receiving feedback from lecturer.
Outcome: Being able to support the rap community to achieve their purpose was one of our goals. However, we also wanted to implement how the rap culture uses lyrics to express their thoughts into our own output.

Phase 3
Decision to subdivide our final output into 2 parts.
Individual: Working with one of the rap artists we interviewed (Harelia) to create an album cover and merch for his upcoming single. Hence, supporting him by expressing his music visually.
Public: As designing is our strong point, we will express our thoughts concerning common topics in the industry. i.e women empowerment and racism through artwork, similar to how rap culture uses lyrics.

Final Output Job Distribution

My job was to design the merch, which includes: t-shirt, stickers, and postcards. Ataka & Arwinda are the ones who designed the single cover. While Eva & Esther created separate artwork about other general topics on rap.

Figure 1.0: Job Distribution

About Harelia

For this final project, I got to design merchandise for Harelia. Harelia is an Australian male rapper who is releasing a new single titled "Have To". We have interviewed him and we had some discussions. He agreed to let us design his upcoming single cover and merchandise for promotion.

Figure 2.0: Harelia on Spotify

Figure 2.1: Harelia on Spotify

Harelia's Upcoming Song Lyrics:

Have To - Harelia

I’m one of a kind, livin divine, I be feelin free

It’ll be tough to get where I want to fulfill my dreams

But it's callin me yeah yeah it's callin me

There’s no stoppin me no no no stoppin me

Cause I have to make it, you know that I mean this woah

Got somethin to prove to all my haters

OHHHH, and I’ll make my fam proud

I’ll make it on your playlist, know I have to make it now

Sketches & Idea Exploration

Other than the album cover, we design merchandise for Harelia. The purpose is to help him promote his new song which is in line with our rationale: to support the people from rap community to go forward with their purpose in hand.

I did some research on the rapper's style and aesthetic, and I came up with these sketches & mood boards. I planned to create 3 kinds of merchandise:

T-shirt
Stickers
Photo Card/Postcard

Figure 3.0: Sketches that I made

This is the mood board that Ataka & Arwinda created for the Album Cover. I planned to put the album cover on the t-shirt and also made sure to apply a similar art style that goes together with the album cover.

Figure 3.1: Album Cover Moodboard by Arwinda & Ataka

Digitization & Design Process

I created the whole design in Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop. For the design, I noted the artist's request to use black and yellow as the main color. I also used spraypaint brush for Harelia's typography, as it is an element that is iconic in Hip Hop Culture. Wavy line elements are to indicate motion and rhythm which are visible in the song.

Figure 4.0: Harelia Typography

Figure 4.1: Design Process in Illustrator

Figure 4.2: Mockup Design Process in Photoshop

1) T-shirt

Because this merch is made for promoting a rap song, I assume the market will be hip hop fans and youngsters. The t-shirt will also be worn by Harelia himself, so I made the design that suits them: Loose t-shirts with graphic prints that are often featured by hip-hop designers such as Sean John and Wu-Wear. I put the album cover on the t-shirt and also made sure to apply a similar art style that goes together with the album cover.

2) Stickers
I want the design to not just represent "Have To" song but also represent Harelia himself as an individual. Besides his iconic words like "Have To" and "Woah", I added the things that he likes to use when he raps as well, such as a microphone, sneaker, and cap illustration on the sticker design. These stickers will be packed together with the album if they were to be printed and sold.

3) Postcard
I put lyrics from his song "Have To" on the front of the postcard as a frame. And I wrote 'Australia' at the back of it to indicate his home country. These postcards will be packed together with the album if they were to be printed and sold.

Figure 4.3: Final Design in PDF

Mockups

Figure 5.0: Album Cover Design (By Ataka & Arwinda)

Figure 5.1-5.2: Final T-Shirt Design

Figure 5.3: Final Sticker Design

Figure 5.4-5.6: Final Postcard Design

Final Output

Google Drive Link

Individual Work: https://drive.google.com/drive/u/1/folders/1jw6REe_FqnOBE_ELDsNP441I-jE1SZ49
Group Work: https://drive.google.com/drive/u/1/folders/1hxMyt-vRdlnNnYAVRJqUvO4fNh5t5mOA

Figure 6.0: Final Output Slides (Idividual)

The complete final outputs of my group are presented in this presentation:
Figure 6.1: Final Output Slides (Group)

Figure 6.2: Final Output Presentation

FEEDBACK

WEEK 6:

Group Feedbacks
Instead of album cover, can the team use the genre as a whole?
Example: A set of digital outwork that speaks about discrimination/ spread positivity/ creativity
Produce a series of artwork that reflect them (expressive artworks)

REFLECTION

Experience

Everyone in the team really did their best to create impactful final output, and at the same time we felt the fun in doing this final project. I'm grateful to have Mr. Asrizal as our supervisor as he knows very well about what we needed to do and he was willing to explained and guide us passionly.

I'm honestly very happy for how our group's final output turns out. We not only designed for a real album cover for a rapper, but we also managed to make artworks that speaks about sensitive topics that are linked to hip hop culture. And for me personally, being able to collaborate and create merchandise for a rap artist was a super cool experience that I won't forget. It makes me happy to be able to support a person from hip hop culture through my design.

Observations

I observed that there are so much to dig from a culture. Throughout this module, I realized that hip hop is a beautiful and unique culture. It came from a rough place and history, but it turned out into something beautiful and powerful, one of them is rap. Now I understand that rap is way more than just a music genre, it is a form of self expression and a platform where people speak up about the issues surrounding them.

Findings

I feel this project taught me a different way of designing, which is designing with purpose and to give impact. It also taught me the importance of research and analysis before producing a design. Lastly, this project opened an opportunity for me and my teammates to collaborate and get to know people from hip hop culture, which is very interesting.

Audrey Gracia Djohari (0348120)

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