Opportunity

Technologies like smartphones are always in our hands, stealing our attention away from whatever we were doing and continues to communicate time as a matter of optimization rather than a matter of a balance. Opposing this paradigm, Slow Design is a design philosophy that encourages people to do things at the right time and the right speed to reposition the focus on their individual and socio-cultural well-being. 

Our grad project, Every, was designed based on the Slow Design principles to:

(1) separate from the immediacy and chaos of current technology
(2) encourage reflexive and diverse lifestyles
(3) celebrate slowness as a positive socio-cultural value.

Every Concept Video was produced and edited by Joohee Chung and Neung Gwon.

What is Every?

Every is a cross-national lifestyle brand that propels to help people retrieve the moments and values they missed through a series of three everyday design artifacts: Every Hue, Every Voice and Every Moment.

Every Hue is a lamp that stores the colour of the natural light in the user’s room from 24-hours ago and displays the distinctive colour pattern movements on its screen. Every Voice is a personal voice recorder that enables an interesting exploration of past-self by revisiting the user with a message recorded from the past, ranging from couple weeks to several years ago. Every Moment is a set of a camera and a screen that only develops the last picture taken over a 72 hour period when the camera is mounted on the platform. When a certain number of pictures are accumulated over time, Every Moment creates a distinctive pattern with the representative colour of each picture.

Approach

Every separates users from the immediacy of technology by creating a stark contrast with design artefacts that are only dedicated to one function. The Reason why Every is distinct from most of other contemporary design artefacts is because these three everyday objects are meant to transition and grow with the users while also presenting the new meanings derived from their everyday life. This was made possible through our consideration on Slow Design, which expresses narrative of time, progression, and change through design. The three artefacts of Every are never the same, yet are continuously growing by accumulating the user’s everyday in a form of audio, picture and a colour. 

Reflection

Every was able to get a design validation from a Slow Design specialist, Dr. William Odom. His feedback allowed us to dive deeper into the physical interaction with each object to enrich the experience with the slow technology. With his guidance, we were able to experiment with the scale of time and incorporate data accumulation into each design artefact to encourage more meaning making.

Joohee is excited to take the project even further through a collaboration with Dr. William Odom and Masters / PhD candidates from the Everyday Design Studio at Simon Fraser University.

ABOUT JOOHEE CHUNG

Joohee Chung is a recent graduate of Emily Carr University, holding a Bachelor of Design and specialty in Interaction Design. Coming from both Korean and Canadian backgrounds, Joohee is interested in inclusive design that invites the users and designers to coalesce their vivid stories into one. 

Her design practice is executed through the following four pillars: learn how to repeat, unravel the invisible, answer to the why’s and know how to play. As an interaction designer, she focuses on the field of Expressive Design to celebrate reflexiveness and slow life as positive socio cultural values. She is excited to explore design possibilities that encourage intimate exchange of personal values, a spark of new interpretations and creativity.

E-mail: jooheechung.design@gmail.com

ABOUT JIYEON LEE

As am alumnus at Emily Carr University Art and Design, Jiyeon Lee achieved a Bachelor’s degree in Interaction Design. Jiyeon is passionate about experience building as she thinks design as a system not just how it looks. 

Her design inspirations start with qualitative research and analysis. From this research, she sees the details of what people need and synthesizes insights from their needs. She articulates both the emotional and rational bases for design. She is not afraid of failures and always be open to different perspectives and new ways of creating an experience.