Conceptual Object Study

Concept / Creative Study - 2023

This conceptual object study series is a set of deliverables made based around an everyday object and is meant to be an in-depth exploration into the design process of visual communication and extracting meaning from objects and products, reflecting the process professionals use in exploring ways of communicating messages about brands, products, and events to their audiences.

Problem: Create a series that visually depicts the translation of an everyday object - a pen - into various designs that explore the materiality and meaning of the chosen object. Taking a simple object such as a pen and creating an identity around it represents the greater challenge designers face of taking concepts and translating them into comprehensive designs that express and convey specific ideas, metaphors. symbols around those concepts.

Solution: I created a set of digital and print deliverables such as posters, an icon set, and a motion graphic centered around a ballpoint pen and the connotations pens carry concerning conveying language, permanence, power, and control.

Project Scope: Poster Design, Icon Design, Art Direction, Copywriting, Visual Communication (Product), Motion

Tools Used: Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe After Effects, Adobe Premiere Pro

Completed as a Solo Project

Part 1: Posters

Animated motion graphic of the posters

The first part of this project entailed me to create a series of three posters, exploring underlying connotations and/or metaphors of my chosen object—in this case a pen—outside the standard meaning of a pen—it being an instrument used for writing or drawing. I considered the permanent nature of a pen and how it’s not easily erased and from that created posters around phrases associated with the power and weight words hold: “The pen is mightier than the sword”, “Words are a weapon. Choose them carefully”, “Once you say it, you can’t take it back”.

Part 2: Icon Set

For Part 2, I create a set of 9 icons that represented a topic or theme directly connected to the pen, with the chosen object also being one of the icons. Designing a clear, cohesive visual system for my icons, I centered this set around objects a business person would need, displaying the pen’s common functionality as a writing utensil in professional settings.

I then translated the static icon set to motion graphics.

Compilation of animated motion graphic icons

Part 3: Tour Guide Animation

For Part 3, I created a motion graphic based on a concept or theme around the pen, ultimately exploring ways of creating time-based media, translating an idea to a final product using time, motion, and 2D graphics, and maintaining a workflow between Illustrator and After Effects from creating assets (recognizable representations of people) to animating them for the final output. For this, I depicted an alternative use to the pen as a pointer to help guide tourists.