graphic design BFA thesis
Transitory Touchpoints
2025
abstract
Food companies aim to engage a consumer’s unconscious thoughts and emotions in their shopping experiences, hoping to influence what could be merely split-second purchasing decisions. Yet some of these designs linger in our minds as they become the connective tissue between our memories and the package that is the ephemeral object. This project examines the emotional resonance of food packaging.
Modern food packaging is typically designed with the intention to serve only a transitory purpose.
ephemerality in two parts
I.
The interactive digital experience — designed in TouchDesigner — aims to turn the webs of memories we come to associate with food packaging into a tangible connection. The piece prompts the viewer to use their hands to rotate and scale the reactive visual on the screen, in a sense mimicking the hand gestures of picking an item off the shelf in a grocery store and observing its packaging.
II.
The books explore the emotional impact of food packaging on consumers from varying perspectives and methods. Book 1 takes an academic stance rooted in marketing and behavioral research, whereas Books 2 and 3 consist of first-person interviews and surveys respectively. All three books sit in a cardboard carrier, designed to be discarded.
book one
The Persuasive Power of Food Packaging
book two
Memories of Food Packaging: Collected Through Interviews
book three