Final Object Design

This is the final object outcome that I created. This design was derived from the idea that Korean has lots of homonymic and homophonic words due to it being a phonic language. Due to this it's quite to make metaphors and puns especially in daily conversations such as: When someone says "kwi-yeop-da" (you're cute) someone may jokingly say "kwi-oep-da' (i have no ears/ i can't hear you!". Similarly, it can also be a tool for Korean rappers in order to tone down their speech or hide real lyrics by using puns and metaphors as a creative tool in order to write their lyrics. An example of this is rapper San E who's song 'Bad Year' (2016) can be translated and interpreted in different ways. As the word 'year' (nyeon)' can mean different things in Korean: year, woman and bitch. He used this word and concept in his song to talk about a bad relationship with a 'bad woman/bitch' during a 'bad year', but on the other hand it can also be interpretated as a political punch towards former the Korean President, calling her a 'Bad B*tch'. 

Because this is quite a complex concept, I felt like using a very simple tool using the same principle would work as well. Similarly, Ben also said the same thing to 'strip back' the ideas that I have. Therefore, the though of using shoes came up in a crit, and I thought it was quite a good idea to work around with. As shoes (shim-bal) sounds very similar to fuck (shi-bal) in Korean, I thought it was the perfect opportunity to show this concept. By using shoes, the first meaning of the word is already explain in a literal sense, however, incorporating the word fuck by altering the object (writing fuck in Korean using the shoelace holes as the grid) gives the object a bit more depth and explains the concept in quite an interesting way. As the Korean spelling for fuck is written in Korean rather than in English the object may confuse or interest the audience, similar to how people can be confused but the pun raps that rappers use with homophonic/homonymic words. In addition, it also shows how certain taboo words can be 'masked' through the use of a more mild or non-offensive words, as the first thing that will be understood in this designs is the object (shoes) itself and not the shoelace writing.

Visual wise, the overall colour scheme of the object (red, blue and white) is consistent with the rest of the design collateral making the overall design cohesive and visually pleasing to see altogether. Although it is quite simple it can attract an audience through the usage of two different shoelaces as it's not quite common. Although, at the same time, it may not be as effective as intended as it may just look like shoes with weird shoelaces tied around it, as the concept it quite obscure, making it really abstract and possibly really hard to understand or get unless explained. 

For the shoe packaging, the shoebox is wrapped in stickers with writings, "Korean Hiphop" and "Hanguk Hiphop". This was to make the packaging cohesive with the rest of the designs as well as establish the micro-genre that I explored. Furthermore, I also think that it adds to the design aesthetic as it looks quite 'rough' and quite interesting. i think overall, it makes the design look uniformed.