Time Capsule II: The Vessel
The Process
I felt that varying redundancy would be the key driver to my design since it is unknown what language whoever finds this speaks, so I tried to be visual and provide several variations of my desired actions and the objects themselves.
I set up an artboard in Illustrator and just let that thesis and spontaneity guide me until I landed on the shapes and layout I was interested in. I have been trying to be looser with my approach to making recently to bring some joy back into a process I have lost a lot of love for over the past few years. Keeping it light, and doing the opposite of what I normally would do has been a breath of fresh air into my practice, and has allowed me to surprise myself in new ways.
The Vessel
I wanted the design to imply that it can be open, so I took inspiration from envelopes, arrow signage, and a cracked egg, hoping that the visual redundancy would potentially imply “please open” in some way, regardless of language or culture.
Beveled edges were chosen to prevent severe superficial damage to the capsule
The color scheme and sheen of the capsule, while garish, were chosen so that it would stand out against the earth. I wanted to make it clear that this is not naturally present, while also insighting curiosity of a viewer.
I chose each inset to be a gradation of pinks, implying that the recipient should attempt to look at these in a particular order- hopefully left to right, but if not, it does not affect decoding its contents.
Its Contents
Given that the recipient of this capsule is unknown, I provided text, digital, and physical formats of my objects in various ways. I’ve included the print files with their texture maps on both a flash drive and an SD card, papers of written text describing them and their stories, and 3d prints of the objects themselves.
This also potentially could accommodate for different future scenarios; maybe our technology is so advanced that they can access the digital files easily. Maybe we are reduced to a post apocalyptic scenario where we need more analog methods to understand the objects…
Overall, I see a lot of opportunity for iteration in this vessel, but at some point, you have to stop! I think I created something unique and fun that still possessed intentional design.