Month: May 2025

There’s something about the broken that feels alive.
This week, I kept noticing the city peeling. A sticker half-removed. Posters fighting for space on a crumbling wall. A screen glitching in the tram. I started to wonder: what if this is the real visual language of now? Not the polished but the layered, interrupted, half-finished?

I’ve been thinking about how design disciplines often work against chaos. We clean things up. We retouch. We organize. But the world doesn’t follow those rules. Meaning emerges in noise, identity reveals itself through mess.

So this semester, I want to work with mess. I want to make space for things to go wrong and I want to create systems that welcome interruption, layering, and decay. Maybe that means printing something over and over until it becomes unreadable or maybe it means designing posters meant to be torn or overwritten. I don’t have a roadmap yet. But I know I’m tired of things that try to be perfect. Let’s see what happens when design begins to fall apart.

I’m interested in what randomness reveals and what emerges when we step back. How does it look like when systems slip, or when time and weather and humans intervene. I’m thinking about how urban spaces speak through their textures, graffiti half-washed away, signs layered on signs, windows reflecting windows. These are not mistakes. They are living surfaces. I’m thinking about how software glitches and compression artifacts create their own strange beauty. Not despite their errors but because of them. I’m even thinking about my own process. How often do I delete something before it has the chance to surprise me?

As someone who struggles with perfectionism in my design work, maybe the most important thing I can do is let go of control and see what happens. I’m so used to polishing every detail, aligning every element, making sure everything feels intentional. But what if the most honest, exciting parts of our work happen after we stop trying to perfect it? What if allowing for mess, interruption, or even failure opens the door to something more human and more meaningful? This semester, I want to challenge my instinct to over-edit and instead trust the process, even when it feels uncomfortable.

I’ve always been drawn to the unnoticed, the random, the imperfect. I take more photos of peeling paint, crooked signs, or strange coincidences on the street than I do of sunsets or famous landmarks. This semester, I want to lean into that instinct. I want to start collecting randomness, not just as inspiration, but as material. Scrolling through my camera roll, it’s clear I’ve been unconsciously collecting randomness for years, fleeting textures, strange compositions, unnoticed corners of daily life and now, those quiet observations are becoming the raw material for a more intentional design experiment.

The goal is to create a zine or digital page that reads and feels like a visual protest against overdesigned perfection. A messy, layered, expressive response to a world that often values control over authenticity. I’m interested in what happens when I break design rules on purpose, in typography, layout, composition, and print and how that affects the way we read, feel, and interpret visual information. I also want to experiment with AI-generated randomness and compare it to my own analog or spontaneous processes. While AI can mimic randomness, it lacks the intuitive, emotional, and visual judgment that humans bring to chaos. I want to test that gap.

This isn’t a fully fixed concept it’s more of a manifesto in the making. Something I will build through experimentation, reflection, and collecting overlooked moments of randomness in the world around me.

Subtle protest through everyday space

Like I already started to describe in my first blogpost, I’ve started to think more deeply and curious about the concept of space; whether it is physical, visual or social. In many ways, space is not neutral. Who gets to take up space, who is expected to shrink and be small, who is heard, and who goes unnoticed is often shaped by power structures such as gender.

Feminist theorists like Iris Marion Young have written about how women are socialized to “keep their bodies small,” like sitting with crossed legs or just avoiding taking up too much room in daily life. In her essay “Throwing Like a Girl” (1980), she discusses how even the most everyday gestures reveal how we internalize social expectations about gender. While men are encouraged to expand, to stretch, to claim their environment, women (or more precisely, those who are read as female in public) are taught the opposite: to shrink, to protect, to avoid confrontation – and to obey.

This tension between visibility and invisibility, between expansion and restriction, forms the basis for my idea generation and concept. I want to explore moments of subtle protest: Reversing these everyday dynamics that happen not through big slogans or raised fists, but through posture, looks and presence.

Here are some ideas I have thought of for possible (animated) poster scenes:

• Manspreading on public transport
  → A woman confidently spreading out while others adapt around her // I have used this example in my blogpost before and I think it is a concept that is known too many at this point. It describes the way how men often sit or stand while taking up too much/ stealing public space from other people in their surroundings, often people perceived as female (Bertrand, 2018).
  
• On the street, women are the ones who step aside
  → A Woman keeps walking straight while a man has to move // This imbalance of public norms of society where a man does not need to bother, has been known for quite a while as it was already discussed by Iris Marion Young in 1990 where she implies that Women are often physically and socially positioned in such a way that taking up space or asserting physical presence is discouraged.
• In restaurants or meetings, people only speak to the men
  → Waiters or colleagues only address the woman, ignoring the men // This is related to the Hepeated concept where men get credit for the work women has done which has happened and shaped history since the beginning of time (Serrano, 2022). For my poster I want to show the subtle signs in daily life where people tend to rather speak with or look at the men than the women.
• Men throw their arms over others’ chairs without hesitation
  → A woman doing the same, owning the shared space // This idea has the same origin than the manspreading idea in public transport, just with the arms.
• Public spitting or peeing seen as normal for men
  → A woman unapologetically peeing in a public space // Men can pee anywhere and it is socially accepted (Even though many people do not like to see it, it is still okay and not called out when someone does). This is another example of how society controls women by them always having to rely on public restrooms in public spaces (Feminist Fightback, 2020).
• Women covering up with a sweater to avoid being looked at
  → Man wearing a crop-top without discomfort or sexualization.
  
• Men standing with hands on hips ; confident stance
  → Women using strong postures unapologetically.
  
• Men taking central space at sports events, yelling and performing
  → A group of women in full control of the moment, loud and unapologetic // This is a reflection of how patriarchal norms encourage male visibility, entitlement, and expressive freedom in public spaces, while discouraging similar behaviors in those read as female (Rail, 2025).
• Men sunbathing shirtless in parks
  → A topless woman reading a book casually // This regards to the – for years – ongoing discussion about top nudity and how men can be topless in public and women’s breasts get sexualized and are not allowed to be shown (Equipe Madagascar, 2020).
  
• Mansplaining / Being stared at
  → A woman overexplaining to a man, or staring at him without blinking // This is another situation that focuses on the silencing of women, with specific attention to the concept that some men seemingly believe that no matter what a woman says, a man always knows better (Solnit, 2025).
• Being groped in public / catcalled
  → a woman catcalling a group of men, flipping the power.

Next Steps

For now, this is an idea pool I can draw from for the upcoming poster. I plan to choose 4/5 scenes to start with, especially ones that feel both relatable and visually strong. My goal is not to “reverse the roles” just for the sake of it or to encourage women to be egoistic in public spaces but to reveal how strange it suddenly looks when someone perceived as female takes up space without apology (and how strange it is that it even feels strange??) and to show that space (like almost all other things) should be equally distributed.

Maybe existing loudly in a space can be a protest too.

Sources

Bertrand, D. (2018). The rapid rise of online feminism: A symptom of the surfacing of a fourth wave? Réseaux, 208209(2), 232–257. https://shs.cairn.info/journal-reseaux-2018-2-page-232?lang=en

Equipe Madagascar. (2020, December 16). Free the Nipple, a highly controversial feminist movement. Sisters Republic DE. https://sistersrepublic.eu/en/blogs/der-blog-der-sisters/free-the-nipple-eine-hochst-umstrittene-feministische-bewegung

Feminist Fightback. (2020, June). The Political Urgency of the Public Toilet | Feminist Fightback. Feminist Fightback | Anti-Capitalist Feminist Collective. https://www.feministfightback.org.uk/the-political-urgency-of-the-public-toilet/

Rail, G. (2025). Sport and Postmodern Times. Google Books. https://books.google.at/books?hl=de&lr=&id=7KI1a6Z3ouYC&oi=fnd&pg=PA301&dq=men+and+sport+events+problematic&ots=dGpZWCX__A&sig=thPKMS5g5T1Hbt1bbeQE97GexHM#v=onepage&q=men%20and%20sport%20events%20problematic&f=false

Serrano, B. (2022, May 28). Hepeating: When a man takes credit for what a woman already said. EL PAÍS English. https://english.elpais.com/society/2022-05-28/hepeating-when-a-man-takes-credit-for-what-a-woman-already-said.html

Wikipedia Contributors. (2025, April 11). Men Explain Things to Me. Wikipedia; Wikimedia Foundation.

Young, I. M. (1980). Throwing like a girl: A phenomenology of feminine body comportment motility and spatiality. Human Studies, 3(2), 137–156. https://www.jstor.org/stable/20008753

Young, I. M. (1990). The People, Place, and Space Reader. Google Books. https://books.google.at/books?hl=de&lr=&id=b9WWAwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA247&dq=Urban+spatial+dominance+(Iris+Marion+Young).&ots=KX_xBJptA7&sig=xHrMLb6NDsm3h250ek5BjFyeOFQ#v=onepage&q&f=false

For my third genre experiment, I’m turning to a world far removed from the digital softness of Lofi or the neon modernity of Electronic: Classical music. With its deep roots in tradition, formality, and historical prestige, Classical offers a completely different aesthetic and cultural frame through which to reimagine the visual storytelling of K-Pop.

Why Classic?

Classical music carries with it an air of refinement, structure, and cultural gravitas. It conjures visuals of orchestras, velvet-draped theaters, marble columns, tailored tuxedos, and gilded instruments. The aesthetic is steeped in a historical Eurocentric idea of “high culture,” and with that, comes a set of visual norms that are both highly gendered and heavily codified: men in suits or waistcoats, women in flowing gowns, all within a restrained palette of blacks, whites, and muted golds.

Introducing a K-Pop boy group into this visual world invites a fascinating tension. K-Pop thrives on the new, the now, the visually explosive. Classical is about heritage, structure, and restraint. What does it mean to place a contemporary idol into this visual lineage?

This genre is about elegance, legacy, and form. It will be fascinating to see how K-Pop’s emotional expressiveness and stylized gender play navigate these older aesthetic structures.

I’ll begin working on this classical transformation, developing visual motifs and styling cues that channel classical beauty through the K-Pop view.

Branding in Lofi

Lofi branding centers on emotional intimacy and authenticity. Often associated with lo-fi beats “to study/relax to,” its visual identity is nostalgic, cozy, and DIY-leaning, built around soft color palettes, analog textures, and handmade or illustrated elements. Branding in this genre prioritizes mood over spectacle, creating a sense of comfort and emotional presence. The visuals are often embedded in soft clothing, unfiltered moments, and solitary, reflective settings.

Evalution

The Lofi genre experiment was both intriguing and challenging, and while it worked out better than I expected, it also showed some key limitations in translating this aesthetic to a K-Pop world.

Lofi’s visual language is inherently quiet, nostalgic, and non-specific. It thrives on mood over identity, often relying on soft colors, hand-drawn illustrations, and ambient, faceless environments. This creates a calming, intimate atmosphere, but it also makes it difficult to embed strong, recognizable personalities into the visual branding. In trying to reimagine a K-Pop group within this framework, I found it hard to represent the individual members in a way that felt distinctive or character-driven. They risked blending into the aesthetic rather than shaping it.

There’s potential here, especially for a special album concept or side project, where the goal might be to evoke a specific feeling or moment rather than highlight the group’s full image. A cartoonish or illustrated approach could work well in that case, perhaps offering a stylized version of the members that fits within Lofi’s softness without erasing their identities entirely. But as a main concept or long-term branding strategy, Lofi feels too generalized. The aesthetic tends to overpower the artists themselves, making it hard to maintain the strong visual-personality connection that’s central to K-Pop.

That said, I was surprised by how well the emotional tone and mood alignment worked. K-Pop often explores vulnerability and intimacy through ballads or softer concepts, and the Lofi styling did manage to evoke a similar atmosphere. It’s not that it failed, it simply doesn’t allow for the kind of individual expression that fans expect from a K-Pop group.

In the end, this experiment highlighted the importance of balance: how much can an aesthetic speak before it silences the artist? And how do you design within a genre that’s more about feeling than face?

Next, I’ll make a 180 twist, and going to experiment with the Classical genre.