DESIGN
WORKSHOP
PROJECT

[ Art direction / Production / Primary Research / Crafting ]

Exploring how luxury brands use their symbolic power to redefine the practical value of goods.

Through my project, I would like to explore how luxury brands use their symbolic power to redefine the practical value of goods, specifically through the sense of urgency they create through advertising and the perceived scarcity of their products. I wish to examine, through a series of artifacts, the disconnect between quality goods and the perceived worth of a product. I took on extreme measures by adding luxury brand logos to disposable items, such as garbage bags, nylon bags and single-use ponchos and plan to create A PHOTO SERIES depicting their usage. In carrying out this image series, my hope is to question the cognitive dissonance between real and imagined value of luxury fashion brands.

PHOTOSHOOTS PROCESS

DOCUMENTATION

The Documentation Process Book is a bound document containing a visual record,
with annotation, of my activities in Design Workshop.

Final Deliverable

My website and book design uses a bold, contemporary brutalist style combined with the inspiration of retro art to experimentally challenge the audience's aesthetic boundaries.

Inspired by many luxury brands, when they launch new anti-conventional design pieces, the work is intended to, firstly, provoke consumer controversy, and thus drive conversations towards consumerism, as filtered through celebrities, advertising, and marketing. Unconsciously, the consumer is being subtly infected, even sought after. They no longer care about the actual value of the goods, the symbol of the products becomes everything.

BOOK

Putting the book in a sealed plastic bag and curated the entire reading process as performance art. When the audience flips through it, they will be asked to wear cotton gloves, open the plastic bag and flip through the book carefully. This whole process simulates a scene as if a sales assistant were presenting expensive jewelry or products to consumers in luxury stores.

The cover of the book is made of mirrored material and the inner pages are intentionally made of shiny pearl texture paper. However, coil binding is used to create a collision between the exquisite quality of the paper and a somewhat banal, everyday binding method.

As reader’s flip through the book, a reflective page is introduced. This page acts as a mirror where the reader’s face will be reflected. This page is set up to let the audience reflect on whether or not their own consumption consciousness is dominated by fanaticism and hype in the consumer society.

READING PROCESS