What if letterforms could dance to music?
Echosystem is a conceptual series of 3D alphabetical letterforms that reacts sensitively to sound waves. These letterforms are individually rendered snapshots based on certain points of sound waves, retrieved from audios recordings of nature (e.g. trees, ocean waves, wind, rain, etc.). As designers, we are taught to challenge ourselves, the world, and others with the question 'What if?'. So, I asked myself "What if letterforms could dance to music?". The main research and inspiration stemmed from echolocation. Just like how echolocation reflects any surfaces in the environment through sounds, these 3D visuals are a reflection of sounds within a digital space. Echosystem translates the sounds of the environment into a visual language of letterforms.
The Adler Planetarium is America’s first planetarium based in Chicago, founded in 1930 by Max Adler. There was a time when institutions targeted their marketing towards kids only. The project is a rebrand case study to re-shift the audience to be more accessible and inclusive to adults — to tourists and the rest of the community in Chicago. The rebrand of the planetarium focuses on connecting individuals to experiences, to each other, and to their inner curiosity for space. To inspire our child-like spirit and to spark meaningful conversations to our next generation.
Echosystem is a conceptual series of 3D alphabetical letterforms that reacts sensitively to sound waves. These letterforms are individually rendered snapshots based on certain points of sound waves, retrieved from audios recordings of nature (e.g. trees, ocean waves, wind, rain, etc.). As designers, we are taught to challenge ourselves, the world, and others with the question 'What if?'. So, I asked myself "What if letterforms could dance to music?". The main research and inspiration stemmed from echolocation. Just like how echolocation reflects any surfaces in the environment through sounds, these 3D visuals are a reflection of sounds within a digital space. Echosystem translates the sounds of the environment into a visual language of letterforms.
The project was inspired by a research course at ArtCenter College of Design. The course was a 12-week research project with a 2-week design execution based on the research. The final project consisted of 3D alphabetical letterforms that reacts sensitively to sound waves. The study of these unique forms were created through the retrieved audios of nature. The main research stemmed from studying echolocation.
Echolocation is a technique used by bats, dolphins and other animals to determine the location of objects using reflected sound. This allows the
animals to move around in pitch darkness, so they can navigate, hunt, identify friends and enemies, and avoid obstacles.
As I continued to research more about echolocation and sound waves, I have discovered that echolocation is not only used by dolphins or bats. Over the course of many years, many visually impaired individuals are able to listen and communicate with their environments by using Echolocation to navigate. Stories about these individuals began to unravel and became a large inspiration for the study and exploration. A great story that I found was about this man, Daniel Kish, who was driven by fearless curiosity to teach himself and many others to navigate by clicking his tongue and listening for echoes — a method science calls echolocation, and that Kish calls FlashSonar.
By listening to these stories, I have become inspired to use echolocation beyond the practical uses of navigation by applying them through a design lens. I explored a new design program called Blender to create the forms and experimented the use of sound inputs to each of these letterforms. I noticed that on each level of a sound wave, the form began expanding and morphing into thicker and thinner weights. I morphed three of these explorations to create each of the letterforms.
