Communication Design |

Comma,

Lucy Ryu

See it On Campus: Level 2

Located right beside the boardroom! (D2315)

At what pace are you living life? How fast does the world compel you to live?
We are pushed into a fast-paced life and are losing track of what is truly important:
spending time to focus on ourselves.

My project, Comma, will guide you to slow down and improve the quality of your life, even if it’s only for a moment.

PROBLEM SPACE

This project was initiated from my personal experience during the COVID-19 pandemic. During the pandemic, I often felt anxious and depressed without specific reasons. But this was a serious problem for not only myself, but also for the whole world. The number of people suffering from mental illness around the world has skyrocketed during the pandemic, and this brought me to reflect on the cause of this worldwide issue.

In circumstances in which there had to be new changes implemented every day, we, who had to adapt to such changes, resultantly became exhausted and insecure. We have been forced to partake in adapting to such rapid changes.

In this fast-paced world where our worth is measured by how much we can do and where productivity must always be maximized,
we need to slow down —
Slow down to consider how we can prioritize self-care and know how much we can withstand.

PURPOSE

This project moves against the world’s reality that we have to live without time for rest and reflection.

The goal of this project is to research and apply how the idea of slowness can actually provide an opportunity to focus on ourselves as well as our emotional and mental health.

My target audience is the general public, especially workers, students, and those who are struggling with mental health problems, who do not usually have a chance to take care of themselves.

PROCESS

01 INTERVIEW

Since my project was originally inspired by my personal experience during COVID-19 pandemic, I chose to conduct interviews as the primary method of my self-directed research. Through these interviews, I wanted to listen to others’ personal thoughts and experiences on the idea of slowness versus a fast-paced life.

I asked four different interviewees to partake in my research, and fortunately, we were able to meet in person and have a conversation about the topic.

Watch short video documentation of the interviews.

02 MARKET RESEARCH

After I decided to design a journal kit, I started researching similar products in the current market. Since there were already various kinds of mindfulness kits on the market, thinking about how I could differentiate my kit was the biggest challenge.

Then, when I looked at the existing mindfulness journals, I found that it was difficult to keep-up with writing the journal consistently as they were usually very thick and had too many pages. That is when I started brainstorming how I could combine the journal kit with the idea of a magazine subscription. Inspired by the magazine’s variability between each issue, I wanted to create a journal kit that contained monthly prompts centred around different keywords within the realm of slowness.

BRANDING

BRAND IDENTITY

Comma is a mindfulness brand that creates space for us to pause in a fast-paced world. Our brand aims to help people realize how important it is to take some time to focus on ourselves amid rapid changes through the idea of slowness.

We need to slow down. We need time for rest and reflection.
And this is why we created our slowness kit.

Our monthly slowness kit delivers a journal centred around a specific keyword, monthly interactive activities, a playlist, postcard, and stationery goods right to your door.

Subscribe now to invest time for yourself in your everyday life.

LOGO

COLOUR PALETTE

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DESIGN PROCESS

01 JOURNAL

Each month has a different colour theme in accordance with its keyword. The March issue, for example, has the keyword ‘pause’ and was designed with a green thematic for its 46 pages.

Click above to read the full PAUSE Journal!