Altered States

Project Brief
Design a conference that advocates for an underserved or marginalized community.

Duration
~10 weeks

Team
Jessie Huynh, Ashten Alexander

Description
A conference that challenges America's current view of drugs and drug users, Altered States is designed to open up a space for a much-needed discussion around possibilities in an area that is saturated with stigma and retribution. This will prevent people from vilifying individuals who use drugs, while bringing attention to possible solutions to challenge the current system. This conference does not advocate for drugs.

Duration
~10 weeks

Team
Jessie Huynh, Ashten Alexander

Week 3

Week 7

Week 6

Week 5

Week 9

Week 8

Week 4

Week 2

Brainstorm research topics

Refine and polish assets

Gather conference materials

Week 1

First pass visual language

Apply designed visual language to components

Fresh eyes critique session

Deliverables presentation

Motion and print designs

Final Presentation

Timeline

For anyone interested in drug policy and changing social stigmas surrounding drug use and users, including social workers, educators, parents, medical workers, advocates, and recreationists.

Educational resources such as drug identification and usage pamphlet publications were designed as conference giveaways to address lack of public awareness and education surrounding this taboo subject matter. Content matter derived from researching impartial reputable sources online and contain basic information on safety measures surrounding usage itself.

All graphical assets in our mockups were divvied and 3D modeled/rendered from scratch, using a combination of Blender, Octane, and Cinema4D.

Conference promoted on social media, featuring all invited speakers on related field of expertise, and teaser of potential lectures leading up to conference day.

Poster sets

Spanning over a course of three consecutive days, the conference aims to address the relationship between drugs and humanity in the past, present, and future, respectively. Supplementary 3D graphics are modeled in representation of the various physiological and sensory elicitations of (some illicit) drugs taken.

al·tered state
noun
plural noun: altered states
- a state of mind that differs from the normal state of consciousness, typically one induced by drugs, hypnosis, or mental disorder.

Altered states carries a double entendre of both altering one's state of consciousness through psychoactive substances, and its given meaning of altering our own states of mind and perspectives around drug use.
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