Redefine Media

For this project we were asked to "Take an existing visual element from one media and translate it into another media. The objective is to explore new materials, investigate what happens to the translation of messages in a new media (including changing target audiences), and discuss how design elements can move from a 2D to 3D to viral, interactive, or performance based. Write a design brief for each iteration of the project describing the differences and similarities as well as changes in the message and audience." 

For this project, for some reason, I was drawn to the idea of recreating children's vinyl placemats. Below is my design brief, explaining my decisions:

            My plan is to design and produce a set of paper placemats called “Adult Matters” that mimic the vinyl children’s educational placemats that many of us grew up using. Why? Because now that we are grown up, what are we supposed to use?- “Adult Matters”- to educate us for the next stages of our lives. Instead of featuring common knowledge that children need to learn (like the fifty states and their capitals, world geography, the alphabet, the presidents of the United States, etc.) “Adult Matters” will feature information that all adults should know: how to impress your boss, how to survive on a first date, the arrangement of a formal table setting, dinner table etiquette, etc.

Hand-drawn cartoon images 

            Just as the mats take a more mature approach in content, they will also take a more mature approach in appearance. While recognizing and playing off of the bold simplicity and childlike aesthetic of the original kid’s mats, “Adult Matters” will be monochromatic in color scheme (instead of bright primary colors), and will be printed on brown recycled paper (instead of stark white like most kid’s menus at restaurants). This aesthetic will be more appealing to an older audience, but they will still feature hand-drawn and cartoon like images to satisfy the light-hearted and humorous content. Overall, the layout and format of the “Adult Matters” will be simple, clean, and straightforward so that the combined bluntness of the description and respective clip-art-like-doodle contribute to the humor of the “lesson”. Since they take an amusing and comical approach to life lessons, they aren’t necessarily meant to be taken seriously, yet they could be considered useful and practical at the same time.

Tube/Roll of Placemats

The design decisions behind the “Adult Matters” are all intended to help capture a target audience of young adults. These young adults are most likely, but are not limited to, people who grew up using the vinyl kid’s educational placemats and see the humor in the adult life-skills version. “Adult Matters” in their unique cardboard tube cases, could be bought at places like Urban Outfitters, art museum gift shops, amazon.com, or other places where novelty items such as this would be respected. The eco-friendly and earthy cardboard cases along with the brown recycled paper of the mats would also help capture the young-adult audience that tends to be very “go-green” conscious.

            “Adult Matters” are meant to be laughed at and shared with friends, not necessarily used in privacy or in seriousness. Yet, a possible secondary audience would be those who secretly need to learn these adult life-skills and have resorted to trying to learn social skills off of placemats while eating at home by themselves. “Adult Matters” would make great gifts for things like moving in to a new/first home or apartment, going off to college, graduating high school or college, birthdays, or just for fun!

            In conjunction with the AdultMatters placemats, I would like to release a set of cocktail napkins that carry out the same theme of humorous education in relation to every-day-life situations. The plain white cocktail napkins are designed to tell you how to act or what to say in certain situations (i.e. on a date, out at a bar or club, speed dating, parties, etc.). They contain two bubbles—a “thought-bubble” and a “speech-bubble”. Within the thought-bubble would be what is really going through your head while in the situation, and the speech-bubble gives a translation of what would be appropriate to actually say out loud during the situation. I made these by drawing out some clouds/bubbles and inserting the text in to them. Then i printed them reversed out on paper and used xylene to transfer them on to the plain white cocktail napkins. They would help market the AdultMatters products of light-hearted education for adults by having the AdultMatters brandname printed on them and making people more familiar with the other main products like the placemats. These cocktail napkins could be distributed to bars, clubs, restaurants, etc. that would attract the same kind of young target audience the AdultMatters brand is shooting for.

First Date Survival Guide Placemat

For this project, I had initially planned on using the format of thick and permanent vinyl placemats, but throughout my process, I grew further invested in the aesthetic appeal of the brown recycled paper. Not only would it capture a certain audience of young adults that tend to favor the "go-green" movement, but it visually coincided with the hand-rendered imagery and added a natural comfort that stark black-and-white imagery could not. Also, for the sake of printing capabilities, I had to sacrifice my idea to print the mats in a continuous and repeated roll with perforation between the mats for the sake of printing capabilities. However, if the project were to be mass produced in reality, this is how I envisioned the final version. 

Formal Table Setting Map Placemat

How to Impress your Boss Placemat