Thi Hong Chuyen Nguyen

As an international student who has lived, studied, and worked across cultures, I have seen how gender expectations shift between environments — but the pressure to “fit” into certain behaviour, roles, or appearances is always present in different forms. This personal lived experience is one of the drivers of my activation project. My activation project investigates how social expectations placed on gender shape how individuals are seen, valued, and allowed to behave. My goal in this project is to design communication that encourages viewers to confront their assumptions, challenge the rigid “FRAMES” society imposes on gender, and imagine a world where everyone can exist beyond expectations.

BEYOND the FRAME - Brand Identity

BEYOND the FRAME is a brand identity built around exposing and questioning the invisible boundaries that society uses to shape gender. The visual language uses the frame as both metaphor and device — representing how cultural norms, stereotypes, and expectations silently confine how people are allowed to behave, present, and identify. By pushing elements outside the frame and visualising characters attempting to break free, the identity symbolises resistance, agency, and the possibility of self-determined identity.

Design Research Kits (DRKs)

In this project, I developed design research kits as tools to collect lived experience data around how everyday gender expectations are perceived and felt. The kits were a way to directly access personal narratives, emotional responses, and subtle behaviours that are usually unspoken. Each research kit included interactive questions with provocative prompts, colour stickers, and stereotype icons. Participants were invited to mark, arrange, and annotate their own “frames of gender” — reflecting the limits or boundaries they have personally experienced.

BEYOND the FRAME - Infographic

The infographic in this project translates the raw responses gathered from the Design Research Kits into a narrative visual story. Instead of simply presenting data as charts or statistics, the infographic frames gender expectations as a journey — showing how stereotypes accumulate, intersect, and eventually restrict identity.

BEYOND the FRAME - Booklet

This booklet is the primary outcome of this project, but it is not meant to dictate the audience's thoughts — instead, it creates space for self-reflection. Each spread focuses on a single visual metaphor that represents different dimensions of social expectation on genders — overlapping frames, dummies tightly labelled with ropes, silent voices, and a body pushing out beyond the frame. By moving through each page, readers gradually become aware of how “the frame” is constructed around them, and are guided toward the final idea: social expectations are not gender identity.

BEYOND the FRAME - Posters

The posters serve as large-scale visual extensions of the BEYOND the FRAME booklet, transforming key scenes into powerful standalone statements. Through taglines and strong visual hierarchy, the posters amplify the emotional weight of each metaphor, making the message instantly readable from a distance. This poster series functions as a visual campaign that provokes curiosity and reflection, inviting viewers to question how gender expectations shape everyday behaviour and identity. They bridge the introspective tone of the booklet with a more public-facing call to awareness — encouraging people to look closer, think deeper, and ultimately, move beyond the frame.

BEYOND the FRAME - Instagram Account (Social Media)

The Instagram account serves as this project’s digital extension with easily accessible content. Each post is designed to provoke micro-reflection within a scrolling environment — using bold imagery, short taglines, and key excerpts from the research to interrupt habitual thinking. The account invites audiences to recognise the invisible rules they’ve absorbed, and engage through comments and shareable stories. It aims to activate participation and encourage turning passive viewers into agents of awareness. On this platform, BEYOND the FRAME becomes not only a documentation of a problem, but a social tool that meets audiences where they already are.

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