Keer Fan - MADA NOW 2021 - Art, Design and Architecture

Hi, I am Keer Fan. I am doing communication design at Monash University. This semester, I have chose Making Things Public as my major studio project. This projects reveals the erosion of public space and asks us to conduct research and design a book or website with our self-generated content. For my project, I’ve focused on the left-behind elderly who live in an old community. I used the strategies of field research as a designer must do, and used methods such as photography, drawing and design thinking to develop my work.

CDS3002 Make Things Public - Book cover

As my book is called Age Inclusive Public Space, readers can easily understand the book's content. My book cover is dark red, a meaningful color that represents happiness, vitality and revolution in a Chinese context. In my book, red is also my tone color that connects people and place. The grey eave represents the features of architecture that my target subjects live with.

CDS3001 Make Things Public- Photograph

As I did field research for a couple of days, I did a lot of photography and interview work during the beginning of the project. My initial plan was to record the interviews of the elderly and make a DVD, but due to the epidemic, I was restricted from leaving my city (the elderly’s community was in a city two hours away by car). Luckily, I was I still able to get some good information.

CDS3001 Make Things Public- Sketch

During this project, I wish I was a spatial designer student! I don’t have ability to make some 3D spatial work, so I have sketched my ideas that a communication student is able to do. It’s been a long time that I pick up the marker pen and draw on the paper, it reminds me to never stop drawing.

CDS3001 Make Things Public - Banner

In the final phase, I summarised my research through the design of a banner. It strongly connects to my publication, as I focused on the people and place.

CDS3001 Documentation - Book cover

This brief asks me to consider what is lost from cultures over time. The collection I chose is tin toys, a staple of childhood in China, these toys were very popular decades ago, especially among people who were born in the 70s and 80s. My family and I have been collecting them for a long time. So as a communication design student, I first used photography and then my purpose was to make a publication book to make 70s and 80s people remember tin toys and introduce them to our new generation.

CDS3001 Full UX Design Process- Prototype

This projects asks us to design and prototype an app to support and enhance the public's experience of an imagined Museum. My designed app of S Art features:
Get to know the story by scanning the art
Renew the museum visit by listening to the audio
Purchase art things from an online shopping platform