Custom Product Aesthetic
— Explore the parameters of a prefabricated design template to customize a product related to your commodity.
— Explore merchandise customization as a medium in which to disenchant the aura of your commodity.
In earlier projects you’ve focused on expressing the magical qualities of your commodity. In this project you will take an opposite direction and try to “disenchant” your commodity: show the commodity for what it “really is;” attempt to show things (as texts or images) that are typically erased or obscured in representations of your commodity. These could be things related to the production of the commodity, like the labor that produces it, where it’s actually produced, under what conditions, etc. The point is to “disenchant” the commodity.
But this will be a strange operation, because you are producing this disenchantment in the form of another (custom) commodity. Let’s see what happens!
Test the limits of the customization features of the platform. Think about the particular product and its relation to your commodity. You might also think of the product you customize as a prop for some sort of action, not just as a blank canvas on which to communicate an argument.
The “final” thing you produce in this project will be just the virtual rendering the website produces when you’ve uploaded or selected your design — you don’t have to actually order the product. This might just be a screenshot, but see if you can find/download an actual jpg or png.
Here are some sites where you can explore product customization:
zazzle
4imprint
discountmugs
redbubble
There are no doubt many more
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