TwoSuns 讲故事拼图 by Chih-Yuan Chang is a highly esteemed winner of the very prestigious 2021 A' Design Award 铜奖 in 平面、插画与视觉传达设计 Competition Category.

铜平面· 2021

TwoSuns 讲故事拼图

by Chih-Yuan Chang

Client: Cyc

A' Design Award 铜奖 Winner in 平面 Category

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The Design

About TwoSuns 讲故事拼图

TwoSuns 视觉讲述了一个古老的故事，即两个太阳中的一个成为台湾土著布农部落的月亮。 TwoSuns 通过将语言与拼图相结合，以互动和引人入胜的方式展示了这项工作。拼图旨在激发人们的好奇心、娱乐性和学习的行动。为了加强部落与精神故事之间的联系，张志元使用多种媒介和技术来表现布农部落的特征，如木材、织物和激光切割。

The Recognition

About the A' Design Award 铜奖

TwoSuns 讲故事拼图是 A' Design Award 铜奖得主，这是授予以创造力、独创性和敏锐见长的杰出设计的极具声望的认可。铜奖得主是技艺娴熟、创意惊人的作品，印证了其设计师丰富的经验、想象力与机智。预计TwoSuns 讲故事拼图将成为一件备受推崇、令人钦佩且被珍爱的物品，兼具显著的专业性与创新性。这件赢得 A' Design Award 铜奖的设计融入艺术、科学、设计和技术领域的最佳实践，并因注重细节而出类拔萃。TwoSuns 讲故事拼图出色地满足需求，触动渴望，迷住情感，并吸引好奇心。

Behind the Design

Press Kit

Credits, team members and technical details provided by the designer.

Unique Properties: TwoSuns is a visual communication design work of a constructed language based on visual forms to narrate a story. The symbols are created logically by their figure and divided into nouns and verbs. This work is unique because it demonstrates the diverse use of media and techniques, such as wood, laser-cutting, and fabric. The use of wood represents the tribe's location, and the use of laser-cut means the drought and burn caused by the suns. Also, Bunun is famous for its textile and weave, which the dictionary to decode the message is printed on fabric.
Dimensions & Packaging: Puzzle dimension: 8 x 8 x 1.5
Outside box dimension: 8.375 x 8.125 x 1.75
Fabric dictionary: 8 x 41
Tags: Visual language, Puzzle, Laser-cutting, fabric, Wooden pieces
Production Technology: The use of wood represents the Bunun tribe's location in the mountain in Taiwan. The laser-cut indicates the drought and burn caused by the two suns. TwoSuns combines the wooden plates with the puzzles to propose that this ancient story has been passed down hundreds of years by indigenous people generationally. Since the Bunun is famous for its textile and weave, the fabric delivers the symbols' decoding message and instructions as it stands for people spreading the story.
Design Challenge: The biggest challenge is to simplify the forms instead of crafting. That is, minimizing the puzzle's shape and the symbols for the users to understand and play is more beneficial since it contains multiple items and materials. Hence, the puzzle requires to reach more intuitive and obvious to complete. For example, there were adjectives and prepositions, along with nouns and verbs. The puzzle's shape wasn't square but more triangular, and the hint for each plate was unaesthetic and more confused.
Research: I used the essential elements such as circle, square, and lines to design the symbols because these are the iconic elements that the Bunun practice on their fabrics in cloths and tattoos. After creating this work, I interviewed people who don't acknowledge the story for feedback. The expected results were that they found attractive puzzling and worked hard on figuring out the symbol's meaning with and without checking the dictionary. Thus, this work is successful in sharing and worth expanding.
Inspiration: TwoSuns is inspired by the story of Retrospection Of The Sun from the Taiwanese indigenous tribe, Bunun. The story depicts how a father and a son from the tribe went on a long trudge for decades to destroy one of the two suns to the moon to save the earth from drought and high temperature. Moreover, Bunun is located in the central mountain in Taiwan with a distinct culture and language of their own. Hence, the idea of delivering the story with visualized symbols on the puzzles is to demonstrate the importance of preserving and passing on this fascinating ancient story.
Project Duration: The project was created from October 2018 to November 2018.
Operation Flow: When users open the box, they will see the puzzle pieces on the top and the dictionary at the bottom. Each part of the puzzle has its associate plate, and the sequence is easy to figure out without guidance due to the blocks behind. There are two small blocks with different distances and angles behind the symbol surface. After completing the puzzle, users can understand the symbols by decoding them with the dictionary's help, expecting users to explore the spiritual Bunun story.
Image Credits: Image #1: Photographer ChihYuan Chang, Overlook, 2018.
Image #2: Photographer ChihYuan Chang, Box, 2018.
Image #3: Photographer ChihYuan Chang, Puzzling, 2018.
Image #4: Photographer ChihYuan Chang, Blocks, 2018.
Image #5: Photographer ChihYuan Chang, Dictionary, 2018.