Travel and

happiness

Learn tolet goThat is theKey to

- Buddha

Table Of ContentsAcknowledgements

Preface

Question

Goals

Mentors

Attachment

Deliverables

EcuadorAmazonCoast

Bibliography

Process

About Me

Problem

01

05

02

06

03

07

04

08

09

10

11

12

01Acknowledgements

Special Thanks toMichelle CarpenterRay SamsTravis VermyleBrian LeisterBrian DeleiveMichael SalamonJason BowersRaul JaramilloEmily AlleyBeatriz FernandezJuan Diego GarciaDiego Garcia Natalia GarciaFrancisco CarreraMauricio Quito Dan Van CoppenolleHenry J. WonseyLuis SuarezJaime GutierrezLeonardo SampedroAndrea RupertiIvan LopezSerafin SantosMinisterio de Turismo EC

02preface

When I was a little person I always loved experiencing things differently. In school I would get out of class to go to say hi to my mother’s art class. I was a rebel to the system and I was always drawn to art from crafts to designing/drawing things for my classmates.

I lived in Ecuador for fifteen years and when I came to the United States in May of 2005 I was devastated to leave everything behind and come to a place I barely knew about. Culture clash was a major issue for me at that time and trying to make new friends was another big issue. My english was very slow and limited vocabulary wise. It was always hard for me to adapt to the culture and it still is to this day.

When I got accepted to the University of Colorado in Denver, I knew I wanted to apply my knowledge in art, most specifically design.

As I am culminating my studies at the Digital Design program, at first I did not know what I wanted to do with the design skills I had learned throughout my college days. What I did know though, is that I loved Ecuador with a passion.

It was when a campaign for Ecuador appeared on screen that I was inspired by what I could do with my design skills, to bring more out of my country’s personality and let people know how beautiful it is. After all, All You Need is Ecuador.

Question

03

How can motion graphics, narrative

and branding provide a visual experience

of a country’s culture for travelers?

This question started to form and kept changing until three months after the start of the semester. It began with the thought of society assuming about a country’s culture without knowing anything of it.

When I first arrived to Colorado and they put me in high school, one of the first people I met asked me where I was from, to what I responded “Ecuador.” She then instantly proceeded to ask me what part of Mexico was that in.

It is always shocking to me, and I am still unable to figure out why, most of the times when a person is introduced to a hispanic country it is most likely that they would instantly think of Mexico and their culture.

I always wondered, “how can they not know where Ecuador is?” And to this day I am still shocked by some comments I get when I tell them I am from Ecuador.

Being that the situation, this soon began forming my question around that idea. I then realized that it has not only happened to me, but to every hispanic. And not to only hispanics but people from the middle east as well.

So how could I change this situation? how can I design a solution to create somehow an experience for society and let them know there is a diversity of cultures that are past Central America.

Goals

04

Create a motion piece that accentuates an experience of culture for the viewer

Make viewers potentially travel to Ecuador to experience its culture

Instruct people of a place unknown to them to subtract the problem of assumption of culture

Attachment

05

To be able to answer this question I needed to clearly identify the way people value experience. The late philosopher, Dr. Edmund Montgomery, on a journal he wrote, talks about experience as a self-actuated entity. An experience is valuable when a person is driven to learn about a thing or place.

People find meaningful connections to experiences that create memories. For instance when making a trip to California to see the ocean for the first time, people are going to value that memory of seating on the sand and feeling the light breeze on their bodies while watching the clear blue ocean water. The memory of that first time, in which they learned how the ocean felt like, will last forever.

My reasearch was based solely around the question on how people value experience.

Value of Experience comes from a philosophical mood that alters our desire to learn.

06Ecuador

AmazonCoast

07Problem

Not very many people know about Ecuador or where Ecuador is and often they assume about its culture and traditions

08Mentors

Emily Alley Award winning graphic designer based in Colorado. She works with major clients such as Nike, Microsoft, and Kellogg’s.

Branding Expert, designer for the ‘Marca Peru’ in 1999. Professor at the Universidad Santa Maria de Chile in Ecuador.

Creative Director and Lead Designer at INTI Labs. Personally created the concept of every project, led the graphic design, built the UI and approved the final outcome.

Raul Jaramillo

Mauricio Quito

09Deliverables

I wanted to create something people where going to be able to experience. I chose to make a motion graphics video that shows two of the four regions of Ecuador.

With the collaboration of many people, I was able to get footage from the Amazon and from the coast for the fi nal production of my extension of the campaign.

With these I included small stories from people who are from the United States and have experienced Ecuador to the maximum. In this matter people will be able to relate to them and be encouraged by what they hear and feel welcome to this beautiful country.

10Process

It truly all began with my infinite love for Ecuador. I wanted to create something for people to understand how much I love my country. It was my goal to show how absolutely proud I am to say that I came from such an amazing country as Ecuador.

To accomplish a look for my extension to this campaign, I

had to put all my effort and time towards the production of it. Many

times I took my homework to work. Reading and drawing in

between customers was a must even researching on spot to

people who I did not know about their thoughts on traveling.

At the start of it all, i was not really sure of what this could look like, though in my mind all I could think of was natural, hand-made art with paint splatters and grunge-like typography.

I started by looking at some hand-drawn typography for inspiration. I found many type faces that could work for me, because I was driven by that hand-made idea. Later on I noticed something and started thinking: “This is not about myself, is about Ecuador.” and that is when it struck me that my typographical elements were not very precise for what I was doing.

This is what I wanted. So how could I represent Ecuador in a logo that could match that of its existing campaign?

I focused my ideas on the thought of Ecuador. What is the Amazon and how does it look like, What represents the coast? I went to pinterest for inspiration, where I found many pictures of people from the Amazon and pictures of the coast.

I grabbed some inspiration that I got by looking at the Huaorani people from the Amazon and their intricate ways of drawing zig-zag lines on their bodies with a red pigment.

I started to analyze their existing logo. I noticed that the patterns they have did not make me think of Ecuador at all. It had some patterns that mimic an almost textile texture from afar. But when you look closer you can see that it drives you away from that textile thought.

The thought of wanting something hand-made was still there, but in order to follow with the campaign ‘look’ I had to have bold letters with some sort of pattern or design form the coast or amazon.

I started by looking at some patterns in the marine iguanas skin and creating that into a pattern to include in the type.

I knew I had to change that and add an aspect that would link more to Ecuador. Including everything that it represents.

Finally I came up with the idea of including all those skin patterns from the marine iguanas and zig-zag lines from the warriors of the Amazon.

Ecuador is a country of mix of race, culture and colorful landscapes. Where you can be at the beach in one moment and hours later you are in the Heights of the Cotopaxi Volcano. I wanted to create a look that could mimic all those things together while keeping the look of the campaign.

For the video part of this project, I spoke with some key people that are in love with Ecuador. Dan Coppenolle and Henry Wonsey.

They love it so much they retired there with their families.

With their stories I will encourage others to travel to the magnificent Ecuadorian land.

I used after effects to create the look of the motion piece. I wanted to create a visual aspect using motion graphics elements that could show you where in the globe you are at and where is Ecuador.

11Bibliography

Riotta, Chris. “People Who Spend Money On Experiences Instead Of Things Are Much Happier.” Elite Daily, 2015. http://elitedaily.com/news/world/people-spend-money-experiences-instead-things-much-happier/983208/.

Cassano, Jay. “The Science Of Why You Should Spend Your Money On Experiences, Not Things.” Coexist, 2014.

“Meet the Millennials: The Consumers to Change It All.” TNW Network All Stories RSS. March 29, 2014. http://thenextweb.com/entrepreneur/2014/03/29/meet-millen-nials-consumers-change-marketing-landscape/3/.

Chan, Amanda. “Proof That Life Experiences -- Not Things -- Make You Happier.” The Huffington Post. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/03/life-experiences-happier-material-things_n_5072591.html.

Montgomery, Edmund. “Actual Experience.” The Monist 9, no. 3, 359-81. http://www.jstor.org/stable/27899051.

W., J. “The Value of Experience.” The Journal of Education 63, no. 20, Pp. 535-536. http://www.jstor.org/stable/42814014.

About Me

12

I was born in Denver, Colorado in the midst of a blizzard in March 23rd, 1990. When I was five months old, my family and I moved to Ecuador, where my father is from. In my early years of age I was always interested in the arts, specially Disney’s Fantasia films.

My family is a family of artists coming from both sides. My mother’s grandfather was a highly known sculptor in Uruguay creating every sculpture there is in the main cities, while my grandfather on my father’s side was a singer/song writer and an architect.

In 2005 my parents decided it was time to come to Denver and let their family experience a new culture and lifestyle. I was put in Golden High School to culminate my studies, where I graduated in 2008. That same year I got accepted to the University of Colorado in Denver.

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