The task of data-driven souvenirs is to use festival data to create a personalised souvenir. The main point I wanted to address with my project was unifying all of the festivals. Edinburgh has a rich festival culture and I wanted to highlight this with my souvenir. I therefore created a series of collectable products, with a separate product for each festival, each year.
I originally worked on the idea of creating one singular souvenir that is added to each time the user attends a festival. The initial object would ‘grow’ as the user attended more and more festivals and events. The souvenir would be a dodecahedron shape with a different side of the product for each festival. I developed this idea and settled on creating a different version of the same product for each festival/year. A contributing factor to this decision was that souvenirs are consumer items and this motivates the user to purchase a new product every festival/year. I made sure to keep the ‘growing’ element of the original design.
The final product is an interactive kit where the user can record their best festival experience each festival/year. The kit contains a packaging box, the 3D object, an instruction book, time-capsule papers and a needle and thread. This is the Edinburgh Fringe Festival version of the product.
On the surface of the souvenir, the user records their best festival experience. This is recorded in the form of an abstract code. The code was created using processing.org. Each letter of the alphabet was mapped onto a number, using a map of Edinburgh. The code generates a pattern for the type of event attended and the venue. These are layered and embroidered onto the fabric side of the product.
So that the user can easily remember what their best experience was, the product also acts as a time-capsule. The kit comes with time-capsule papers, the user writes their best memories on these and places them inside the object. The object is then sealed with the lid. The object has the abstract representation of the users best experience on the outside and the written memories inside.
The item is designed to be tactile. This is why the representation of the user’s best experience is abstract, because the most important element is the texture. As this is meant to be a tactile object, it includes Braille of the festival and year.
As the souvenir is designed so that many can be collected, the design is edited for each festival. Below is the Edinburgh International Festival version of the product.
The different souvenirs click together using the fastenings on each side of the product. This means that over time the user creates their own ‘festival tree’. This means that the consumers souvenir ‘grows’ as they attend more events.
