Monday, August 25, 2008
My very 1st Assignment!!!

Extracted from my preparation for this exercise

In the square world, everything is made out of squares. Anything that is not a square is also morphed into a 4 equal sided right angle polygon. It was on one of those days that I decided to bring some food from Earth. Gathering my 5 newfound friends from Square world, we had a picnic by the park in Square world.

In Square world, no one has ever seen fast food before. It was a creation that was ingenious only on Earth. So when I brought fast food into the Square world, they were very intrigued by its colour and appearance. Apparently, the Squares have never seen “red” in their entire life, while they could only comprehend “yellow” through the setting square sun. Perhaps red and yellow were so much of an opposite in their world that the colours simply couldn’t exist. (perhaps the reason why the sun remains in square world is due to the fact that there should only be one sun in the solar system, and that sun happened to be yellow). It was such a pity that the Squares have never fully appreciated the use of red and yellow. On Earth, these colours are associated with high branding value. Countless of companies other than the fast food chains have made use of red and yellow, such as Coca Cola, Vodafone, Ferrari, Shell and even DBS. Companies make use of these bright colours and its shorter wavelength to create a closer distance perception, hence attracting the attention of the customers. Perhaps that is the reason why Mac-Donald is able to earn higher revenue comparing with duller colour fast-food chains.

Even though there are 3 dishes brought over to Square world, fast foods come as a set meal (usually a burger, a side and a drink), and with the use of a few common colours among the fast food, there was sufficient for the 6 of us, each mysteriously having food for our own.

Intuitively, the Squares chose their choice of fast-food with accurate resemblances to their character. Each of them had a behavior that suited their colours and their appetite. Starting from the bottom left, I have decided to choose “Long John Silvers’”. Long John Silvers’ are famous for their deep fried fish and French fries. Since I came from a Teochew background back in Singapore, fish can be seen as one of the essential dishes for a Teochew meal. The fact that Long John Silvers’ is one of the few Fast-food chains that emphaysises on Fish, it further showed the huge difference between a Earthly being and a Squarely being.

The next square above me is a wealthy square. His skin is able to reflect against sunlight, hence making it in comparison with a similar shade of blue called “Aquamarine”. Aquamarine is also known as a gem which is under the same grouping as Sapphire. When Aquamarine selected the fast food, he decided to go for Pizza Hut (Red, black and a bit of yellow), and it so happened that Pizza Hut was the most expensive meal out of the six fast-food.

The next square is known as “midnight blue” since he had a darker shade of blue on his skin. He was the kind of person who stayed up late in the night doing his own work, ending up with little or no sleep at all. Instinctively, he picked out the Mac-Donald’s meal, perhaps not knowing that Mac-Donald’s now has outlets opening 24 hours daily.

Moving on is Cyan, the fickle minded square. It is interesting to note that although Cyan has a certain amount of blueness in him, he also has the equal amount of greenness as well, making him indecisive on whether he should be a blue square or a green one. He chose the MOS burger set. Similarly, MOS burgers sell their burger in a “fickle minded” way. Being famous for their rice burger, the creators of the rice burgers was stuck with the Japanese lifestyle of eating rice and the Westerners lifestyle of eating burgers, so they decided to combine the both together, just like how Cyan looks like.

Being the smallest square, Baby blue clearly shows the youthfulness and childishness of a kid. He chose the KFC meal. Although KFC and MOS burger almost have a similar set of colours, KFC has a slight beige to its lighter portion unlike MOS burger who uses the white background. Other than MacDonald’s, KFC has also adopted a mascot concept in line with their meals so as to cater to the children. This was why Baby Blue picked up the Chicky Student Meal, which is smaller in comparison with the rest of the meals.

Finally, Azure is the last square friends who joined us for the picnic. Azure is commonly used on Earth to represent the clear blue sky, hence he adopted similar traits of being environmentally friendly and healthy living. He chose Subway, knowing from the package that Subway does not use polystyrene materials and uses recycled plastic bags as their carrier. Subway is also one of the healthiest fast food out of the 6 meals.

From the picnic, I have learnt that sometimes, Colours and people have a link with one another in terms of purpose, emotions and perceiving distance. It can be used to represent an object, or even used to enhance the appreciation of a particular object, simply by understanding the nature of the colour. In conclusion, when colours are seen at face value, it might all be in a complete mess, but with the clarity of what square represents, it will become clearer why the square is in that particular colour and size, and the whole mess of squares will then turn into a picnic with 5 square friends.

Labels: Industrial Design

Up, up and away says Super Pioneer Daron.
11:47 PM.