Coca-colonization: the globalization of American culture pushed through popular American products such as soft drink maker Coca-Cola. [definition via wikipedia]

Fieldwork// Iteration 1
While in Uganda's captial city Kampala, I worked alongside and piloted my prototypes with the youth dance company, Batalo East. Their company combines both traditional and urban dance to encourage innovation, identity, confidence and career advancement in young people. I chose to pilot with a youth audience specifically because Uganda’s population is made up of 77% youth who are under the age of 30. They are the upcoming generation in Uganda and their insights on globalization, colonialism, brand models and cultural impact are valuable being as they are Coca-Cola’s target audience. This series of prototypes aims to interrogate the interpreted motives of the global brand of Coca-Cola through initiating dialogue with Ugandan youth around issues of colonization, imperialism, globalization and evaporation of culture.

Branding the Brand// Iteration 1
Repositions power into the hands of Ugandan youth to express their perceptions, experiences and opinions of Coca-Cola by creating their own bottle labels in order to brand the brand. The vending machine serves a conversation object to share and dialogue about the newly branded bottles.

Fieldwork// Iteration 2
Through dialogue that arose from piloting Branding the Brand, I discovered that many local aspects of Ugandan culture have been affected by the influx of globalization through American brands and culture. I specifically looked at two facets of Ugandan beverage culture for my next iteration. A traditional beverage called Omubisi, which is a banana juice that originated in Central Uganda, has become nearly inaccessible in restaurants and bars due to the monopoly of larger commercial brands like Coca-Cola. An additional local beverage I looked within Ugandan culture is known as Amuwala, which is the local brew otherwise known as beer. Amuwala is traditionally served communally in a clay pot that houses several straws for 10 or more people to partake in the brew. Daniel, whom I met through ArtCenter’s Ugandan network, assisted me in sourcing a market vendor that makes Omubisi as well as locating a bar that serves Amuwala.

Communal Coke Vessel// Iteration 2
Calling on both locally sourced juice and ways of consumption, this prototype serves as a rebuttal to Coca-Cola, an imported American brand. The use of the Coke bottle is a reflection on the sustainable practices of Uganda while also serving as a satirical stab at the brand’s ethics and globalization tactics.

TOOL(S)
Adobe Indesign CC
Adobe Photoshop CC
Cardboard
Duct Tape
Sharpie
Coca-Cola Bottles
Paper
Bamboo Straws

Branching off of my investigate research and fieldwork while in Uganda regarding Coca-coloniaztion, I further explored themes of individualism and collectivism through several rounds of material explorations. I wanted to interrogate Coca-Cola's bottle design of intended individualism through hacked collectivism by morphing and manipulating existing Coke bottles and the inherit functions of drinking from the bottles. While conducting fieldwork in Uganda, I discovered that many Ugandans felt their cultural practices were fading away as other cultures imposed their culture through globalization. 

Coke has been a culprit of monopoly and globalization in Uganda by limiting or removing access almost entirely to local juices and ways of consumption from several restaurants and bars. Within this project, I focused on a way of consumption that Ugandan’s drink Amuwala otherwise known as their local brew. The brew is consumed at bars around the region collectively through elongated straws. Through making and iterating, I pushed further what this type of collectivism and communality would look like by hacking the highly Americana and globalized brand Coca-Cola, which is extremely prevalent in Uganda.

TOOL(S)
MDF
Vaccum Form
PVC Tubing
Krazy Straws
Coca-Cola Bottles

My graduate cohort (Anjuli Sethi & RJ Sakai) and I spent several weeks with residents of Jovenes, Inc., a non-profit organization that specifically provides housing stability for homeless, at-risk young men ages 18 to 25. The group of guys we worked with expressed an interest in Technology, which led us to integrating it into one of our sessions. The guys created their own circuits with an on/off switch that controlled an LED light. We designed a lightbox that served as a stage for the guys and ourselves to display our labels, which evolved into rich dialogue and conservation. In working with the guys, we wanted to explore how Labels that we all experience serve as something we identity or reject. We each took time to reflect on labels good and bad we have experience in life. Performance became an interracial part of their interaction with the light box and the element of surprise arose from the theatrical narrative in presenting your own label and why you wrote it. We designed Labelmaker as a branch off of the initial light boxes. We felt it was imperative to create a similar communal, story telling dynamic as people interact with the labels.

TOOL(S)
Acrylic
Adobe Illustrator CC
Adobe Indesign CC
Band Saw
Buttons
Cardboard
Drill
Electrical Cable
Hammer
Hot Glue
LED Bulbs
Optical Sander
Paper
Plywood
Resistors
Router
Screws
Solder
Soldering Iron
Wood Glue
Window Tint

The location I chose to investigate was from Little Armenia to East Hollywood. I spent over an hour at the site photographing aspects I felt were intrinsic to the voice of Little Armenia. Themes that I found most interesting were Armenian signage, architecture and street art. Through my documentation, I wanted to reveal a connection between the location and the culture that inhabits it. After exploring all of my photographs, I decided my focus would be on street art within the community. I began sketching out ways in which dialogue could occur by introducing an intimate space within an urban setting. It was important to me that this space was portable so I could carry it and that it could adhere to existing structures within the community such as Metro, telephone, and streetlight poles. In naming my prototype, I looked at the bare bones of what occurred and enabled dialogue: Exchange. I wanted to use both the English and Armenian translation of Exchange. This enabled me to assimilate an aspect of the culture within my prototype. I felt it was important to keep the line width of the typography the same for both the translations of the word Exchange. This detail reflected an equal relation of meaning and I wanted to make sure that English spelling of the word wasn’t interpreted as better, more correct or more right than the Armenian translation.

TOOL(S)
Adobe Illustrator CC
Adobe Indesign CC
Cardboard
Duct Tape
Hot Glue
Laser Cutter
Masking Tape
Xacto Knife
Paper

The glyphs are structured coherently within the design parameters of the Perpetua typeface. For the photographic component of this poster, an architect’s scale is set in the context of a workspace. Additionally, the poster carries the theme of twelve by displaying the glyphs on the scale. The body type of the poster is set to 12 point.

TOOL(S)
Adobe Illustrator CC
Adobe Indesign CC
Adobe Photoshop CC

This Counter Change Toolkit puts power into the hands of the community members who are encountering change. Highly satirical, this toolkit brings to the surface the potential responses or notions within a community that is experiencing a proposal for change.

TOOL(S)
Adobe Indesign CC
Adobe Photoshop CC

Alcohol has been used by many literary greats as a creative conduit. However, many of them have also become alcoholics, which has had a detrimental effect on both their careers and lives. This book showcases the writing and imagined workspace of 10 well-known authors along with recipes for their favorite drinks. It is intended, as a cautionary tale, to promote responsible drinking.

TOOL(S)
Adobe Indesign CC
Adobe Photoshop CC

I reconstructed text from a chapter excerpt of Typography: Formation and Transformation: Introduction to Typographic Process by Willi Kunz into four different typographic compositions. The four compositions showcase varying grid structures ranging from 3 to 6 columns. The typefaces were chosen from several type classifications such as Humanist Venetian, Didone Modern, Grotesk, Egyptian Slab Serif and Transitional. Fundamental aspects of typography such as rules, alignments, hyphenation, indent and exdent are evident in throughout the four typographic compositions. The four compositions aim to reflect the knowledge and understanding of the basic fundamentals of typography.

TOOL(S)
Adobe Indesign CC

I wanted to create a publication that highlighted some of my favorite attributes within West Coast culture such as food, travel, music, art, design, and nature. It’s evident that this region of the United States has so much variety that even being made up of just 3 states it still holds your interest. I wanted to further inform reader’s perspectives on what the West Coast fully entails. The West has a lot of dimension and still has various regions yet to be explored. The name Roam West was birthed from the notion of our founding relatives who set off to the West from the East Coast and Europe. The West presented to travelers a sense of promise, hope, and a curiosity for the unknown yet to be discovered. This publication strives to demonstrate modern day examples of that frontier mindset through the artistic expressions, curiosity and gumption of those featured within its pages.

TOOL(S)
Adobe Indesign CC
Adobe Photoshop CC

Conveying a timeline in a circular shape seemed the most relevant and natural way to relay time. The circular theme is carried throughout the timeline with the technologies, typefaces, and type classification’s evolution indicators on the timeline and is used in the legend of the technology, typefaces, and type classification. The structure of the timeline begins with the 1100s and proceeds clockwise to further demonstrate the progression of typographic and technological evolution ending in the 2010s. The clockwise attributes of the timeline enables users to compare the dynamic advances of the typefaces and their classifications but also learn how technology has greatly aided in the progression of innovation in typography.

TOOL(S)
Adobe Edge Animate CC
Adobe Illustrator CC
Adobe Indesign CC
Adobe Photoshop CC

1h 2m is a bound collection of video footage documenting both the Lander Pathfinder (1997) and Rover Spirit (2004) landings on Mars. It translates the video and audio into a tactile, physical form through screen captures and the visual translation of sound waves. The intentional pairing reveals the emotional connection and anthropomorphisms of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory staff.

TOOL(S)
Adobe Illustrator CC
Adobe Indesign CC
Adobe Photoshop CC
GarageBand

China was the first place I had ever traveled to internationally and was also the first region in the world I served in the humanitarian effort in 2004. I was 15 years old and traveled over 20 + hours to China with Global Expeditions. Their organization hosts hundreds of people aged 13 to adults that gather together and spend anywhere from two weeks to two months doing humanitarian work nationally and internationally. Educational seminars on the customs and cultural practices of the various regions last for 3 days. Teams are then disbursed worldwide to aid in humanitarian efforts such as education, building rehabilitation, caring for children at orphanages, and discovering and forming meaningful relationships between region’s locals and visiting westerners. Our team spent a week in Hong Kong teaching English to elementary aged children at a conference center and for the remainder of the trip went further inland to the rural regions of Nanjing and Fuzhou teaching a juvenile delinquent hall renovated into a school where out team taught junior high and high school aged students.

Africa was the second place I traveled to internationally to do humanitarian work in 2006. I was 17 years old and traveled nearly 25 + hours to South Africa with Global Expeditions. Their organization hosts hundreds of people aged 13 to adults that gather together and spend anywhere from two weeks to two months doing humanitarian work nationally and internationally. Educational seminars on the customs and cultural practices of the various regions last for 3 days. Teams are then disbursed worldwide to aid in humanitarian efforts such as education, building rehabilitation, caring for children at orphanages, and discovering and forming meaningful relationships between region’s locals and visiting westerners. Our team spent the entire month’s duration in QwaQwa, a very small region known as a ‘homeland’. A ‘homeland’ is an area where Whites forcibly resettled the African population during Apartheid in the 1970s. The region is heavily oversaturated and bears many emotional and physical scars due to the uncivil actions of the National Party governments. The people of QwaQwa opened up their homes to our team where we would sit for hours talking about each of our cultures. It was an honor as well as a very healing experience to have had the opportunity to encounter the people of QwaQwa.