4GLOBAL
Capstone Project
Project Challenge
My case study project challenged me to come up with an issue that is important to me that I want to solve. Throughout the year, my issue changed slightly as I learned more and expanded on my ideas. My chosen issue started off as food insecurity among international students at VIU and eventually evolved to become broader. Through my research, I realized there were a lot of other issues that international students were facing that also needed attention. Therefore, I had to come up with a solution that addressed all of these issues.
Strategy
To start finding potential solutions to my issue, I did some research from literary resources. I was looking to see what kind of research had already been done on this issue and what solutions, if any, had been tried.
Then, I sent out an anonymous survey to international students to ask them about their experience at Vancouver Island University. I was specifically looking to get an understanding of how much help they received from the university. This survey helped me fill the gaps in my research and narrow down the issue to VIU. However, I needed to go deeper into the issue and do an in-depth interview with an international student at VIU. This interview provided me with a lot of insight into the areas where VIU was lacking.
Design Process
My design process started off with the research and deciding what approach I would take. I then moved on to sketching and brainstorming possible solutions. These small thumbnails are so important to sketch out quickly to get all of your ideas out, bad and good. We had a lot of peer review sessions to talk through our ideas and get input from others. I got a lot of helpful direction from my peers that influenced my solution in the end. After this, I did some refined sketches and then moved on to the digital version. I created a moodboard to decide on some branding elements such as font, colours, style and more. Then I was able to move on to creating digital drafts, which got turned into the final product. I wanted my solution, which is a zine publication, to have a very rough, unfinished and tactile quality, so I used a lot of layering, gradients, textures and colour masks.
Throughout this whole process, I was getting feedback and updating my research, so the solution and product were slowly evolving. This is why iteration and flexibility are so important. If I had gone with my first idea, it wouldn’t have been as effective a solution.
Solution
For my solution, I created a zine publication to support international students in a way that helps their community. I wanted to make international students feel less alone and acknowledge that their struggles aren’t going unnoticed. This solution takes more of a counter-culture, artistic approach. There would be weekly publications of this zine that I called 4GLOBAL, and each week, there would be another topic. Sometimes the publication would be serious, like an international student speaking out about their mental health, but sometimes the publications would be funny or helpful ones. For example, sharing recipes from around the world, saying things they miss about home, ironic advice and more.
Not only will this zine be visually eye-catching, but it will also give domestic students an inside look into what it is like to be an international student and educate them. The zines would be handed out on campus along with magazines like the Nav. Ideally, it would be an international student-run publication. The overall goal is to connect international students and give them a physical reminder that they are not alone, and give them methods to deal with some of the issues they are facing. This solution would fill a gap at VIU, it is a type of support that international students are missing.
Takeaways
Overall, I am happy with how this project turned out. I learned a lot throughout this project. For example, not every solution has to be a big one. Sometimes, the most effective solutions and the ones that get the most attention just make a small impact. At the beginning of this solution, I felt stuck because every solution I came up with didn’t feel like it would make enough of an impact. But change happens little by little, which is why I think my solution is a step in the right direction and would impact international students’ lives for the better at VIU.
If I had more time, I would do more preliminary research instead of narrowing down so quickly. I would also love to start a social media account about my zine because I feel social media gets a lot of attention.
