Transcript

Designing Beyond Words | Suranart Kasitipradit | TEDxYouth@PathumWan

[Music] i have this yearning to feel connected heard and seen even if i don't tend to admit it it's always there and i know you do too and every time i disregard that longing it often leaves me feeling distracted and unfulfilled for college i went to the science schools and sf and new york where i met lots of incredible and driven creatives it's also where my beliefs and passion gained greater clarity as i got more and more invested into my study though it felt like i was losing touch with thailand now mind you this lack of intimacy isn't so much the physical distance from the people that i love in my home but rather a lack of intimacy that comes from within you know from every time i choose to disregard myself my health and my identity as a tie i would constantly seek approval from other people by becoming an achiever and base a lot of my worth on how busy i am you know always hustling to leave something early just to come late to the next thing everything around me felt so loud all the time after graduation i had a good talk with my girl with my dear friend nana about where we want to be in life one of the things that came up was that as much as we appreciate our education being surrounded by eurocentric art and design narrative all the time especially when we didn't have a clear sense of who we are makes us feel so much more alienated from our roots and there was also this whisper at night now that tiny little voice inside your head that comes out at 3am when your guards are down it was telling us to do something about it as a response we started the collective together as a way to reconnect and explore our bond with the motherland we want to see all this cool design concepts we were learning typist image medium mr message 3d and motion graphics apply to thai typography thus typeface was born before we knew it our team grew into a seven person team in fact let's meet the crew hey siri call typeface making a facetime call to typeface [Music] oh my god you guys hi do you want to say hi to everyone i miss you so right now we have nana and sarah calling from new york and then na is calling from hatyai pikat ping is in bangkok and then suiting she's in chiang mai how you are seeing all of us right now is usually how we see each other even before the pandemic we were never all in the same city so we had to do most of our designs and brainstorming sessions through soon you guys thanks for stopping by i hope to see you in person now where were we oh yes okay so in the beginning stage of creative projects designers often start creating words or prompts and that's exactly how our collective approach projects as well and if you ever dated a graphic designer before you probably might know that we love talking about typography which by the way is essentially what brings text to life it's a term for font style appearances spacing and anything to do with text really which all aim to create this very specific message in addition to the word that you read my professors always used to say that it's like how when we speak our tone of voice gives this added meaning to what we're trying to say typography does the same to add on to the fun we are also in the age where knowledge has very little gateway on the internet connotations the words are no longer you know bound and limited by prescribed culture and generational values of one specific place in this forever connected world we have open access to different ideas symbols rituals and identities beyond our borders and from all around the world as a result words and their connotations are forever interactive dynamic and decentralized in meanings as a bunch of designers artists and writers we want to use our skills to enhance this i may not be a certified linguist but i can tell you that every time i open twitter this new way words are being used for example great which i was pretty sure meant hate but then if you add a bunch of dodec in the back turning it into or gliada it suddenly means love oh looks way which means a beautiful world while it actually connotes this toxic positivity culture among the so-called life coaches or my favorite word te which means to pour but as a slang the word means to dump or to bail on someone and you know lots of love to those people who just don't taste just hang in there be strong drink a lot of water and stay at home we have this vision for typeface for it to be a playground for experimenting with typography and pushing design and an industry that's largely client focus our name typeface comes from a play on words between tie and typeface which by the way refers to a collection of letter designs and related fonts for example saraban is a typeface while saraban bold is a font we really want the name to reflect our light-hearted attitudes to its thai typography it's also meant to almost be like a promise really to ourselves to always remember that spark of joy we felt when we first started designing and to celebrate playfulness and to make fun of ourselves from time to time because this very headspace is where we find our brightest ideas and most daring imaginations now unlike the roman alphabet each thai character connotes a very distinctive meaning from a chicken gawkai to the last letter an owl in phase one of this project we celebrated this very uniqueness by reimagining each letter forms all 44 letters in total based on their essence in today's context from our perspective of course while trying to interpret abstract ideas into type like boldness and beauty for example car court directly translates to a bottle to the team though the letter has this hidden sense of defiance as the most common court around is called lao or alcohol it's also a letter that isn't commonly used anymore as a solution we drew called chord with rounded edges and a self-assured curved body when in motion the letter pixelates into tiny sharp pixelated squares a notch to how under the government's guideline a thai tv station would censor court of alcohol and any other vices from re-imagining traditional leather forms in phase one we realized that we could use thai topography to express who we are and what we stand for so now in phase two it's about designing beyond the words it's about animating the local tongue the slang the swear words to try to visually spark conversations about modern day issues here are some about animated words now a quick disclaimer for you these words are strong they are powerful and they may even be sensitive to some but we truly believe that they very much exist within our day-to-day lives and review a great deal of insight about our current culture the first word i want to present to you is idok tong which means golden flower it's a thai slang for and you know how straight people say and the gays we say and the meaning is totally different italk is kind of like that it has become less less offensive nowadays as it often use almost like a hey girl hey especially in the lgbtq community for example idoc have you seen that new thai gay series yeah yeah it's the one where the main gay couples are played by straight actors while actual gays such as comedic reliefs yikes next word yetbet means to f a duck it's an interjection used when chopped frustrated or surprised the double rhyme of this phrase in thai and its english translation is a beautiful synchronization of the linguistic forces animals are a reoccurring theme in thai profanity why is that do we think so low of animals as a culture is classism so ingrained into our way of life regardless this word is supposed to be a dehumanizing and disconcerting attack on your existence as a human through depravity and darkness there is comedy yet beth is a prime example of that ps another really popular alternative so this word is yet kei which means to have sex with a crocodile our third word is rakhnuwan sangwonton it's an all-time proverbs about the importance of being reserved especially for young girls if you ask us though it's also this incredibly toxic and confusing narrative where on one hand thai society encourages girls to appear innocent reserved and soft-spoken well on the other hand expects them to prioritize fertility beauty and essentially sex whatever choices a girl makes with her body is entirely her business and someday she might want to rak no one sang on because that's her jam and someday she might wants to be wild as hell and that's okay too our last word for the day is yet yet means to discriminate our problematic yet still culturally acceptable colorism directly relates to the more intense systematic racism in the u.s who's here has been guilty of running to 7-eleven after school when they were young to buy the skin whitening drink i know i have or in countless thai rom-com how the main girl is depicted more beautiful when her skin becomes lighter and hence snatch the her dream boys and gain recognitions from her peers we should not define our idea of beauty based on white features the more we design the more our process and our work review the very relationship that we have with who we are with our family our friends and essentially our country typeface helps us acknowledge what we stand for through this project we have also made friends with so many incredible creatives from all around thailand and abroad some share their crazy animations with us on our page as guest designers some even reach out to be our intern above all though they are so supportive and honest they hold us accountable and call us out when our facts are off and we're really grateful for that three of them peter and bin whom we've never met in person before actually flew from bangkok to chiang mai to help us set up for chiang mai design week back in 2020 last year little by little our tiny family grew into a community we don't deserve their talent and kindness yet they still share with us their time and insight with so much love i've become a firm believer and shout out to oprah for this but before you start any project you must first ask yourself what is your dream for it and by all means like it doesn't have to be a public one you don't need to tell anybody but just make sure that the answer is clear and true to you or else your work will lack energy especially nowadays with all these fake news and double standards everywhere there's a real cravings and desire for meaningful intention so you must wholeheartedly believe in yourself your dreams who you are and your community find a way to connect your work to a higher goal and stand proudly in what you hold sacred when you do that people who resonates with your truth will rise up to support you to start i'd like to urge everybody all of you here today to look inward and ask yourself and notice what makes you feel energized and refreshed keep following those feelings typeface started as a design project about words a platform for us to connect with ourselves our culture and celebrate freedom of expressions it has grown beyond that now and has become a space where my friends and i choose each other and i'm really proud of that especially in an industry that constantly romanticized competitions and pulling all nighters and working alone when in truth the work that we put out in the world will always be in context of each other so it's important to be supportive and kind growing up i was always shamed for being way too feminine you know so i try really hard to be more masculine but it was shame for that too starting an app man i try really hard to please other people that i end up betraying myself it's something that i'm still unlearning today this thai type in motion family means the world to me because it's about being authentic to oneself it's about knowing exactly what can sells and is loved by the industry the client while refusing to be limited by them it's about reigniting the curiosity in our design process and celebrate experimentation i am really proud to have been a part of this team and i think it's really cool how awesome and of us have such unique ways of expressing ourselves to me typeface is one safe space in my design practice where i can solely choose to just do me and let's just say the little self-conscious gay kid in me is really proud of that designing beyond words means you don't try to contain simplify or reduce down new ideas but instead deciding in a way that puts yourself and your value out in the world proudly to everyone who is watching i want to dare you to expand your idea and make it so large that it has its own life and then keep thinking even bigger still embrace that and everything that comes with it i promise you it will all be worth it you guys thank you for coming to my ted talk [Music]