Following the tutorial, I began to narrow down my initial ideas and focus on the directions that felt the most promising. At this stage, I decided to continue developing two topics: digital health and vegetable anxiety. These ideas stood out for different reasons. Digital health was supported by my previous research and academic writing, while the topic of vegetables felt more personal and had the potential to explore everyday behaviours through graphic design. I began researching both directions in greater depth before deciding which one was more suitable for my Independent Project.
Narrowing Down My Ideas
- AI Animation
It requires extensive evidence.
AI topics are difficult to cover
The source of the problem isn’t necessarily AI.
- Gender Discrimination
Although I remain interested in the topic of gender inequality, I decided not to pursue it further. Reflecting on my undergraduate project, I realised that I struggled to identify a more specific angle that could move the discussion forward. The issue is broad, complex, and often shaped by diverse personal and cultural perspectives, making it difficult to create a focused design intervention. More importantly, I felt that unless I could propose a stronger or more meaningful response than the one I had already developed in my undergraduate project, there was little value in revisiting the same topic. Rather than repeating previous work, I wanted my Independent Project to challenge me with a new question and allow me to develop a different perspective through graphic design.
- Tree / Time
I really like this observation.
But for now, it’s just an impression I don’t yet have a clear research question or a point of intervention.
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Social Media / Phones
This phenomenon is very common.
However, I don’t have a particularly strong interest in it, nor have I found a unique angle to approach it.
Continue Research
1. Wearable Technology(Apple Watch)
Quantified SelfHow wearable technologies encourage people to understand their bodies through numbers and measurable data. Rather than relying on personal feelings or physical sensations, users increasingly depend on metrics such as sleep scores, heart rate, and activity rings to evaluate their health. This made me question how digital technologies are reshaping our relationship with our bodies and whether data has gradually become more trusted than our own perceptions.Can people be disciplined by data? eg.At 11:50 p.m., Ring was still 200 steps short. Many people would start pacing around the living room, even though their bodies were clearly ready for rest. But all for the sake of the stats.
Also people will care a lot about ranking
How Graphic Design?
Digital Health InterfaceThe visual language used in digital health interfaces, including applications such as Apple Health and Apple Watch. I was interested in how interface design communicates ideas of health through colours, icons, data visualisation, notifications, and progress indicators. This led me to consider how graphic design not only presents health information but also influences users' behaviours, expectations, and understanding of what it means to be "healthy."
Focus on a specific function: Sleep, Period Cycle, Mood, Exercise
The more I developed the idea, the more I felt that it risked becoming a research project rather than a design project.
Cannot record = Invalid
As I reflected on digital health, I became increasingly interested in the experiences that cannot be measured or recorded. Wearable devices and health applications are designed to capture structured data such as steps, heart rate, sleep, and activity. However, many aspects of everyday life—such as daydreaming, hesitation, quiet reflection, or simply doing nothing—leave no digital trace. I also noticed this in my own experience. If I forget to wear my smartwatch during exercise, I often feel as though the workout "doesn't count," even though I know my body has experienced the same physical effort. This made me question how easily recorded data can become a substitute for lived experience. Are activities only considered meaningful when they are visible to a digital system? Could graphic design create new ways of representing the aspects of life that remain invisible and unquantifiable?
Precedent research
To better understand the potential of this topic, I decided to look at existing graphic design projects related to digital health. I wanted to see how other designers approached wearable technology, self-tracking, and health data, and whether there were examples of meaningful design interventions beyond presenting research or raising awareness. This helped me consider what opportunities and limitations already existed within this field.
The body is no longer the subject of sensations and experiences; instead, it increasingly resembles a commodity in the information age—one that can be quantified, traded, and consumed. Whether it be one’s appearance, health, or the emotions and vitality one displays, all can be priced, measured, and exploited within a given system. The author selected two representative professions in the internet economy—programmers and food vloggers—and assigned prices to various parts of their bodies to highlight the “parts” of the individual that hold the greatest value for capital, thereby completing this process of the body’s instrumentalization and commodification.
Row after row of standardized images, with numbers covering the faces; individuality is treated as an anomaly by the system. People are reduced to data, and the standard of measurement is no longer emotion or experience, but rather their position within the information structure.
Although these works were not directly about digital health or wearable devices, they explored similar themes of quantification, measurement, and the changing relationship between people and their bodies.While these precedents offered strong conceptual perspectives, they also made me realise that many designers were already critically examining the datafication of the body. I began to question what new perspective or design intervention I could contribute beyond this existing discussion.
However, the more I developed these ideas, the more I struggled to define a clear role for graphic design. While the topic offered rich theoretical discussions, I found it difficult to translate them into a meaningful design intervention. This became the turning point that led me to reconsider whether this was the right direction for my Independent Project
2. Vegetable Anxiety
When I first began exploring the topic of vegetables, my thinking was still quite broad. One of the ideas that interested me was the belief that "taste is something that is trained." I started reflecting on how food preferences are shaped through repeated exposure and childhood experiences, rather than being entirely natural. This made me wonder whether people's dislike of vegetables could gradually change over time.
At the same time, I was also interested in how eating habits develop from external supervision to internal motivation. As children, many people are encouraged—or even forced—by parents and teachers to eat vegetables. As adults, however, the responsibility shifts to ourselves. I began questioning how this transition influences our relationship with healthy eating and whether our choices are driven by genuine preference or by a sense of obligation.
Another discussion during the tutorial focused on my own eating habits. I mentioned that I often eat frozen vegetables, which prompted further conversation about convenience, accessibility, and people's everyday decisions around vegetables. This made me realise that vegetables are not only associated with nutrition, but also with lifestyle, habits, and personal experiences. These early reflections gradually encouraged me to investigate the topic further.
Areas for Further DevelopmentTaste is Trained
- food neophobia
- repeated exposure
- children's food education
- taste education
- sensory food design
- food experience design
3. Spatial Perception & Direction Systems Conflict between two spatial cognitive systemsI became interested in how people understand and navigate space differently. For example, my father often uses east, west, south and north to describe directions, but I struggle to understand these systems and rely more on front, back, left and right. This often creates communication conflict.
I realised that “front, back, left and right” are body-centric spatial systems, while compass directions are more abstract and detached from the body.
This made me question whether spatial perception is universal, and whether language influences how people experience and navigate space.
I want to use Graphic Design to explore how navigation systems, maps and spatial language assume certain ways of perceiving space, while not everyone experiences orientation in the same way.
Keywords:
- embodied navigation
- spatial perception
- bodily memory
- orientation systems
- language and cognition
- communication systems
- mapping
- wayfinding
My question: Why do some people navigate through bodily memory rather than abstract directions?
Does language shape spatial perception?
This idea remained at the stage of an initial observation. Although it raised interesting questions about spatial perception and communication, I decided not to pursue it further. As I continued refining my project, I found myself becoming more engaged with other directions that felt more personal and offered clearer opportunities for development through graphic design.
Class Review
During the class review, I decided to present only the vegetable project, as it had become the direction I was most interested in exploring. Rather than focusing on the idea itself, my tutor encouraged me to think more deeply about its purpose by asking a series of questions: Why vegetables? Why is this project important? Who is it for?
These questions helped me articulate my initial intention more clearly. At that stage, I explained that I wanted to create a project for children, aiming to reduce the pressure often associated with eating vegetables. Instead of being told what they should eat, I wanted children to feel that they had the freedom to make their own choices and gradually develop a positive relationship with vegetables in a more playful and engaging way. I also imagined that the project could take the form of a brand or packaging system, using graphic design to make vegetables feel more approachable and appealing.
- Key Point
The design approach is still limited to branding and packaging.
The instructor constantly asks “Why” and “What is the purpose?” to help you clarify a vague idea.