DEBT

Describe your idea and concept of your work in relation to the festival outlines:

When I think of debt, the first thing came to my mind is its popularization in today society. In these several decades, individual, business, and even country made debt at a much higher degree than they did before. Therefore, the main concern now is how to solve this problem, or how this trend can be controlled. My work will illustrate three major methods that people can follow to manage their personal debts wisely. I have chosen the personal debt to work on for this assignment, as I want to do something closely related to myself and people around me. Also, it is very important for everyone to have a better knowledge of personal financial management. My work is aimed to remind people that managing debt is not a difficult job, and it can be done by taking just several simple actions.

The main concept of my work is to discover the difference and relationship between debit and debt. If we pay a bit more attention, we can see that there is only one letter “i” difference between the spelling of the word “debit” and “debt”. And as we all know, there is a significant difference between the meaning of debit and debt. While debit means money that I withdraw from my account with the amount that I currently have, debt means money that I borrow from others because I don’t have it. The letter “i” can turn the word “debt” to “debit”, I, as a single person, can play a significant role in deciding whether I can turn debt into debit, or debit to debt. Everyone can actually determine whether to live under debt pressure, or enjoy our life by spending what we can actually afford. This main concept has been clearly shown by the logo, with the letter “i” appears as quite differently in shape and size comparing with other letters of the word “debit”.

To strengthen my main concept, I have turned the letter “i” into a separate circle and a separate rectangle, which represent two major forms of money, that are coins and notes respectively. People can easily think of coins when they see the circle of my design as I have created it with the elements of coins (ie. the continuous dot inside the circle). The letter “i” is being enlarged to deepen the concept that I am the only one who can control how many coins, how many notes and how many debt I should have. The logo is shown in the circle and the bottom rectangle shows one slogan (ie. save money, spend less, control temptation), one graphic that symbolize the slogan above (ie. cash box for save moeny, dollar sign for spend less and apple for control temptation), and also the most important message of my work (ie. manage “i” debt). All of these three slogans I have used in my work include only two words, therefore they are very straightforward, simple, clear and easy to understand. It is also easy to remember, and ideally people can keep these words in their mind to keep reminding themselves when they want to spend more than they have or when they are facing some temptation.

What kind of communication approach do you use?

poster and magnet

What are in your opinion concrete benefits to the society because of your communication?

Through this campaign, I believe the society will be reminded to spend wisely and start to manage their personal debt. This campaign will spread the message that only one person themselves can control how their life should be and how much they should spend. Nowadays, there are too many products and services that people can choose from. However, those luxury handbags never ask you to buy them, and those luxury cars never open their doors for you themselves. It is all about temptation, if one know how much and what kind of products they should spend, he or she can easily get rid of debt. I believe that this campaign can awake people, especially those shopaholics to control their temptation, to manage their money and debt properly.

What did you personally learn from creating your submitted work?

At first, I was quite confused with what exactly debt and debit means. Then I started to discover the meaning of them, and have finally found out the difference and relationship between debit and debt. Through this assignment, I have also learned how to investigate a topic in deep, and then find out something relevant to support the main concept develop in a creative and engaging way. Moreover, I have learned how to use simple graphics and words to represent a relatively complicated topic in a persuasive way.

I have learned three different contexts of information visualization practices from Hall (2011)’s reading regarding how information visualization shapes the society. From the scientific practice, I explored the information about personal debt management. Thus, I reduced the amount of information that I have found and shaped the concept, which is considered as journalistic practice. From the artistic practice, I highlighted my concept, challenged the previous assumption about debts and then generated a new and creative idea.

Why is your work, GOOD communication WORK?

I believed that my campaign is a good communication work since I have used simple but persuasive idea to remind people a very important concept they should have. By showing the poster nearby the luxury stores will be very effective to shoppers who cannot control their sudden temptation. Also, the magnet firstly sticked on the letter box and later on the fridge can remind family members to spend less, save money and control their temptation everyday they open the fridge.

Where and how do you intent do implement your work?

I have applied my concept into two communication approaches. The first medium is poster. I have produced a series of poster with the same concept, style and key message, but with different color, graphic and slogan. Poster will be shown nearby the shopping mall, especially where the luxury stores are located. All the posters will be printed on FSC certified paper. By using only duotone, the poster will reduce wasting ink, as normally four colours of CMYK will be used. Soy based ink will be used for printing the poster, and it is beneficial to the recycling process since soy ink is considered as easy to remove during the de-inking process.

The second approach that I will use is magnet. I will firstly stick the magnet to the letterbox of some apartments; family member will then take it home and stick to their fridge. Some people like to stick their receipts, credit card statements or bills with the magnet on their fridge, so my magnet can act as a daily reminder to family member to manage their money wisely and try not to turn it into debts.

Did your intervention had an effect on other Media. If yes, describe the effect? (Has other media reported on it- how? Were you able to change other media with your work- how?)

NO