Hi, I’m Nhi. I am passionate about making design that speaks to sustainability and the longevity of this planet. I enjoy experimenting with type, illustration and packaging solutions to create designs that break traditional bounds. My studio project focuses on the perspective of future living from people of the modern age. I have learnt to engage users in ways that defy their comfort and immerse them into a possible reality.
DRK Questionnaire
My DRK is designed as a mailed census booklet to gather data that will assist in the construction of an underwater city. It briefly informs the audience (of 2080) that immense flash flooding will result in submergence of cities. As a result, impacted civilians are to migrate underwater. The DRK is formatted in the form of an activity book that allows users to vote on their preferences in lifestyle categories.
Build Your Aquasuit
Another activity included in the DRK is a DIY task where users identify what gear they need to survive underwater. This activity was designed to test the user’s general knowledge of safety as well as identify their sentimental attachment to things. The activity clarified the user’s emotive thoughts by further requesting their explanation to the items they had selected.
The Climate Crisis Press
From the results gathered in my DRK, a newsletter has been produced informing my participants on the future of their decisions. The poster uses the data in a statistical and visual manner to replicate the traditional structure of data reports found in newsletters. The format intends to again, relay a domestic value to the data that is mailed to people or found in store stands the same way newsletters are traditionally delivered.
Aquasuit Guide
A user's guide to the aquasuit acts as a guide for underwater civilians to confirm that they have all required gear before leaving their homes. It is a visual poster designed to be hung in domestic and work environments as safety protocol. The design ironically takes the form of a patent blueprint to tell users that without the core parts of the gear, the user cannot function (more or less survive) in their new environment.
Aquasuit Catalog
Maintaining consistency with the domestic theme of things, my second outcome for this project is a shopping catalog that features the aquasuit as a product for purchase. The design borrows from 1970’s home catalogs that reflect the proposed future well as most civilians will be indoors until they are able to purchase an aquasuit. The magazine poses the users in a scenario voted for in the DRK which was ‘swimming with a companion,’ again engaging the participant’s interest through to the outcomes.
C-XPRS
The final outcome is designed to be projected on an underwater billboard. The design engages underwater civilians in the form of transportation that is viewed as the most practical form of travel. Although individual transportation was the favourable option through the DRK, it is not the most environmentally stable and cost effective solution. I have chosen to depict an unfavourable option to communicate to the audience that the future, despite how bizarre it may seem, will involve sacrificing personal comfort for the sake of survival.
Han Kim Bach (Nhi) Nguyen, DRK Questionnaire
Han Kim Bach (Nhi) Nguyen, Build Your Aquasuit
Han Kim Bach (Nhi) Nguyen, The Climate Crisis Press
In the spirit of reconciliation Monash University acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.
