timeless taiwan 2020
Timeless Taiwan is a cultural event hosted by the Taiwanese Overseas Student Association (TOSA) at the University of Washington. The student organization celebrates the spirit of Taiwan through a wonderful evening of cultural performances, fun games, and authentic foods. As an officer and graphic designer in TOSA, I participated in concept planning, photoshoots, graphic design, and event decoration.
DURATION
4 months, Nov 2019 - Feb 2020
TEAM
Joanne Chen, Ariel Chiang, TOSA officers
CONTRIBUTION
Concept Planning, Poster and Banner Design, Photoshoot
event banner
the brief
Design promotional and event decoration materials for Timeless Taiwan, an annual Taiwanese Cultural Event at the University of Washington, which invites singers to perform, serves authentic food, and carnival games.
theme
Each year, Timeless Taiwan has a different theme, which is used as promotion and inspiration for art materials designs. For the year of 2020, our theme is based off of a Taiwanese romance film You Are the Apple of My Eye.
INSPIRATION
The inspiration behind the theme came from the 2011 Taiwanese romance film You Are the Apple of My Eye. It is based on the semi-autobiographical novel of the same name by Taiwanese author Giddens Ko, which accurately portrays Taiwanese high school life, the youth, the passion and spirit, relationships, and the memories.
WHY?
Promote Taiwanese Film
You Are the Apple of My Eye is a very popular Taiwanese film. It set box-office records in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore and attracted 3 million people when aired on television. It is a great teen film and holds dear to our heart. Because of all the reasons above, we wanted to introduce it to more non-Taiwanese people and allow them to experience the culture through it.
Show the Attractions in Taiwan
The film was shot at several famous tourist attractions in Taiwan. Jiufen, an old mountain village with authentic Taiwanese food and traditional Chinese architecture, Pingxi a town rich in culture with beautiful natural scenery, and more.
Represent Student Life
The film portrays the typical Taiwanese high school life, the carefree days, the youth and the passion, and all the good and memories that come with it. We want to represent that to people coming from different cultural backgrounds while bringing those who share the same story down memory lane.
poster & banner
Below are the official poster and banner for Timeless Taiwan 2020, celebrating youth, friendship, dream, and love. They are shown on the facebook event page, promotional materials, flyers, and more.
DESIGN PROCESS
The event poster and banner informs people when the event take place, what the event is about and represents our theme. We spend one to two weeks finding actors and actresses for the photoshoot and went on trips for test shoots.
Inspiration
Since we based our theme off of the film You Are the Apple of My Eye, we wanted to recreate the official film poster, which is also used on the book cover and song album. It has the main characters sitting on a high bench beside the sea. To make it relate to our event more, we had the actors holding Taiwanese snacks we will be selling at the event.
Test Shoots
We went and did some test shoots, trying to find a spot that replicates the original poster. We went to multiple spots, but some has the light backlit and some locations needed post-production to look alike. In the end, we settled on the railing by the lake.
Challenges
1. Weather: It was January when we shot the poster and banner. It was cold outside and did not have much sunlight.
2. Location: Finding a location that looks like the original poster was harder than expected
3. Lighting: We had to take into account the time of the day when the sun would not be backlit
social media promotion
Every TOSA officer is responsible for promoting the event. For Facebook, we decided to have everyone change their profile pictures to one that is theme related. On the post of their profile picture, they will share links and write captions about Timeless Taiwan.
FACEBOOK PROMOTION
Cover Photo
For the cover photo, our PR director scheduled posts for the 50+ TOSA officers. Depending on the time from the event, some officers will change their cover photo to the official banner, the event name or the menu.
Profile Picture
I shot 50+ TOSA officer's profile pictures, which are horizontal with the event name on the left of the image (shown on the top second slide). When it is shown on the Facebook profile, the event name is cropped out but can be viewed when expanded. Each TOSA officer has to change their profile picture with captions and links related to promote the event before the day.
DESIGN PROCESS
Inspiration
The inspiration behind the profile picture was from the film stills from You Are the Apple of My Eye. It shows the actress in a classroom setting sitting behind the actor. We wanted to reproduce the high school setting, the actor and actress wearing uniforms, the classroom board as the background, and the shallow depth of field of the image.
Preparation & Background Decoration
Since we are in Seattle, a classroom setting like this was hard to find. So we decided to recreate the scene in our living room, where we had a white wall to decorate. Using the film stills as references, we created the classroom board with cardboards and papers. We then borrowed light kits to create even lighting.
