Intercultural Design Workshop 2022

Concept

Since 2009, student participants have been able to evaluate their workshop experience. In this way, we learned that students desired the opportunity to expand their cultural understanding by working with and getting to know additional participants better. Previously, teams consisted of two German students and two Indonesian students. This workshop was divided into two different projects with different group members to expand team member experiences, which triggered greater participant satisfaction.


The two workshop projects explored both pictograms and logo design. Pictograms belong to guidance systems, as we know them in airports, for example. Logos are also signs, but they often have a commercial application and may represent a company, a product, or an institution. In Project A, students had to create orientation signage that was based on WC pictograms.


The second project thematized intercultural branding with storytelling for a specific product that is popular in both Indonesia and Germany. In Project A, the toilet signs could be presented in a German-Indonesian cultural center where both cultures would be equally addressed. Toilet pictograms are a vast source of culturally different expressions. They show clothing e.g. a sari in India or Islamic veils as a representation of sex. There are toilet signs that show only a triangle and a circle as a rather abstract representation of the sex which might result in confusion. Thus, a second goal is to produce signs that avoid such confusion. In the research phase, students developed infographics to analyze various toilet signs in order to structure and categorize them. In the design phase, students looked for inspiration from their respective cultures.

Project A: Set Workshop Content and Media

  • Topic: Exploring Orientation Signage - WC Pictograms from various nations
  • Subtopic: WC Signs for women and men that are as easily understood in the Indonesian culture as the German culture. Additionally, teams create a signage guidance system for a hypothetical German-Indonesian cultural center that reflects both cultures in signs for toilets, a library, conference room, restaurant, movie theater, etc.
  • Medium: Graphics, illustrations or GIF-Animations

Project A: Learning targets

  • Design language: Raising one‘s awareness for the look and feel of signs
  • Graphic communication: Distinguishing between the semantics and syntax of signs
  • Cultural awareness: Raising one‘s awareness for different values, aesthetics, beliefs etc.


The second project:
Branding of a product for both Indonesia and Germany was introduced by an expert from Jakarta, Niken Hapsari, General Manager at Ogilvy and Mather Advertising. Hapsari presented several current and awarded campaigns while explaining the approach and development of various brands. Furthermore, a pedagogical guide led our students from brainstorming, scribbles, and research to the final design.

Project B: Set workshop content and media

  • Topic: Intercultural Branding with storytelling for the selected product (narrative)
  • Subtopic: Semi-figurative logos (name of the company, logomark, or logotype), target group, communication goal, and the product story. Create a branding that contains the name and the logo for a product that is popular in both Indonesia and Germany, like chocolate, energy drink, coffee, fashion, etc.
  • Medium: Graphics, illustrations, and logo animations

Project B: Learning targets

  • Design language: Raising one‘s awareness of the impact and relevance of branding
  • Graphic communication: Developing a logo design, a matching logo animation, and an optional packaging series and merchandising products with all media consisting of a unified style
  • Cultural awareness: Includes raising one‘s awareness of different value systems, aesthetics, culturally different design, branding strategies, etc.

This intercultural design workshop was our second online course, with students using an online learning platform as a virtual classroom. This time, we enhanced the experience by adding partially hybrid classes as well. To achieve this, German students remained together in the classroom with face-to-face interaction as in traditional courses. The Indonesian students participated throughout the workshop online and were seen on a large projection screen in the German classroom. Clear and reliable communication was achieved via professional sound equipment and the Indonesian participants could hear and see my students as well, since we used a movable webcam and. microphone. While the mixed student groups worked on their projects, they used our videoconference platform exclusively.