HOUSE OF CARDS ー Yōkai
Nikki Juen, Design
【Fall semester 2017】
Students were assigned to create 16 double sided cards that reflect a given list of design themes as well as tell a personal narrative and to create a housing for them.
I chose to narrate the ghost stories I grew up listening to from my very early childhood that still create a horrifying chill when I read them today. Each card illustrates a favorite story, and on the back is a scene from that particular story in both English and Japanese, while both sides reflect the design themes in concept and composition.
magnitude
movement
organic
geometry
intricacy
modern
harmony
uniformity
contemporary
asymmetry
experimental
simplicity
ornamentation
proportion
symmetry
subtle
Housing
The design inspiration is the form of a saisen box--an offering box at Japanese shrines to accept tossed good will offering coins to the shrine and resident spirits. My idea is to use a saisen box as a container of evil spirits, and I further incorporated a lock to heighten the sense of suspense. I designed the lock mechanism to only open upon accepting a coin offering. When someone tosses a yen-dama coin into the box, the dropped coin becomes the key to unlock the housing of the spirits--the Yōkai.
