Time Capsule Part III

The story

Let me tell you the story in 125 years.

It’s 2146. Everything changed. Do people still exist? Yeah, they are still here, luckily. People are living up in buildings that are 1000 floors tall, and technology has invaded every part of life, even has been able to connect the present to the past with just a single scan from the phone. Amazing, right?

Life has been all good?

NAH.

You won’t believe the inflation. Now one slice of pizza is 20.99, while 125 years ago, it was only 1.99. The worst thing is that people have been paid almost the same compared to 2021, after the conversation of inflation. Yeah, I know, like, what?

This young man J is lucky enough that he found my Relax Advent. He is a young engineer who works in a big corporation, but he is unhappy. J is having this frowning face all day around. He is not unhappy — he is just stressed and never had a good sleep after he got into the company three months ago as an engineer. He is set to be financially independent by his parents now, but he is just under so much pressure that he couldn’t even rest well every day.

Every night before sleep, all the stress came to him as a group: how to get promoted, what about the crazy expensive rent for this apartment, how about the debts, how about the student loan, and marriage is another problem that J’s parents have been pushing him. Yeah, even it’s 2146, people experience almost the same kind of stress just as 125 years ago, and not less but even more.

They are stopping J from sleeping. Even it’s 3 a.m. in the morning and he does feel extremely tired and exhausted, his eyes are still widely-open. This is insane. He doesn’t know how to relax, and he even doesn’t know what relax stands for.

One day, on his way back home from work, J found this random box out of nowhere in his apartment front door.

J is curious what it is so he keeps reading the note along with the box: “Hey, to a stranger in the future. This is a time capsule made by an NYU graduate student Ruobing. This Relax Advent box contains several items that Ruobing used before to destress her from busy work and life because those things are representations of her personality and life stories. If you are stressed and willing to try something nostalgic and retro ways of relaxation, please use this box! ”

“How would somebody know that I am super stressed?” J was so surprised this time capsule just showed up the time he wanted the most. He doesn’t know what “nostalgic ways of relaxing” really mean, but he wanted to have a try — he really needs a good rest!

J followed the instruction on the side of the relax advent box. He is going to open one door per day and try out whatever is hidden in the box for him. J opened the first box on day 1. It is a candle warmer with a small block of firewood-scent wax. Luckily in 2146, the transformer is no longer needed for electrical items that a master outlet has been invented.

J plugged in the candle warmer and put on the wax; shortly, he started to smell a relaxing scent of firewood that smell like nature — it is something he almost never experienced before in his 28 years of life (oh yeah, the forest is disappearing as the pollution becomes worse). J used his phone to scan the candle in order to extract some useful information from the candle warmer from the owner, Ruobing, to understand why she likes this way of relaxing. J’s phone started to talk:

“This is something new I just got that makes me feel at home that it creates the candle lights that remind me of the time that my parents would always have some candles in the cabinet just in case we went out of power. I chose a forest scent candle to put on the warmer so it creates a sensational scent in my room that feels like nature. I like this candle warmer because it gives me two ways of relaxation, a feeling of home and being loved, and a feeling of nature and wood.”

Day 2. J opened the second door. There are 3 tea bags inside in Korean.

J used his phone camera again to understand what the tea bags are: they are corn tea and rice crust tea, which are not caffeinated. The teabags are 125 years old, but magically, they are under good storage that they are still safe to drink. J prepared the tea with hot water: “hm, this is really good!” His phone is telling him the story of the tea bags:

“This is a bunch of non-caffeinated teabags, yes, it is specific. Caffeine keeps me vertical, but also more anxious and stressed. I love these non-caffeinated teabags from Korea: rice cracker tea, barley tea, and corn tea in particular. Those help me to keep on track with my drinking habit without giving me extra stress and anxiety, which sometimes works way better than coffee in the afternoon.”

There is a stress ball behind the third door of the relax advent box. J doesn’t know how to play this, either does he know what it is.

J’s phone tells him the behind story of this stress ball that the owner, Ruobing, actually designed it as a freebie for one of her internships previously. By squeezing the stress ball, J feels that all his anger and annoyance is being squeezed into the cloud, and what comes out is a sense of relief and a long breathe. This is a new experience for J, but he likes it.

“This is another toy that I enjoyed to release my anger, annoy and unhappiness. It is a stress cloud that I helped to design for one of the companies I worked with as a marketing assistant. It’s not like the other stress balls that are easy to squishy — this one is pretty tough and I really need to use a lot of strength to squeeze it — but I like it. When I get too anxious and annoyed, I always wanted to release those negative emotions so I can go back on track and keep working on whatever I was working on. When I “used up” all my strength to squeeze my stress cloud, all the negativity is being squeezed out too, as if they are not here anymore. I feel super released and relaxed, and am able to do whatever I should be doing.”

The next day, it is a diffuser behind door 4 when J opened it. There is almost nothing like a diffuser in 2146 already: 3D scent printer is already widely used by people, but it is usually for getting rid of the odor, or purifying the air. This is old, but new to J.

It is a scent of sandalwood and vanilla, according to the note. J’s phone speaks more about it: “This is my recent favorite reed diffuser by the bed, which isn’t too strong but a very calming and warm woody note of Santal with a bit sweet and creaminess vanilla brings. This makes me feel like I am sitting by a campfire in a forest during a summer night. I like my room to be scented and sensational that it relaxes me down and makes me feel home and comfortable. This diffuser ideally sits beside my bed and pats me into sleep, which I really enjoyed the peacefulness and calmness it brings to me to dream.”

“What is a Google home mini?” J said. It is a Google Home Mini speaker behind door 5.

J’s phone said Google used to be one of the biggest technology companies in the 21st century that produce a series of products and services involving new technology story of the Google Home Mini and how to set it up as the way Ruobing intended. Wi-Fi in 2146 is super fast that the entire earth is covered by Wi-Fi completely. J’s phone continued to speak:

“Nature sounds calm me down. Every now and then, I like to ask Google to play some nature sound instead of pop music when I am working or studying. The power of nature is amazing that every time when I listen to the sound of waves, streams, rains, and anything water-related, it makes me so comfortable that I can concentrate as the sound peace out, rather than getting hyper and hyper when pop music is playing.”

The last door! There is a stick thing with a weird face. What is it?

It’s a massage stick! J’s phone told J that the massage stick used to be a popular item for relaxing the back and shoulder back in 2021. And this massage stick is impersonated character of a South Korean boy band called BTS back in the day. J’s phone told him the story:

“I guess I’m getting older, or just that I am sitting in front of the computer more than often since COVID, my neck and back start to get stiffer and stiffer. I bought this massage stick from Line friends several years ago, but haven’t been actively using it since last year. It looks useless, but it is something that really makes my back and neck relax from so much typing and tension with computer works. I like how this massage stick helps me to find my real body and its problem even just by randomly massaging myself, and it give me a nice stress relief by giving me the opportunity to listen to my body.”

J started to follow Ruobing’s ways of relaxing in his daily work. He would always have a rice crust tea or a corn tea instead of a coffee in the morning to start a day of work, with the scented items in his office to provide him a nature vibe.

After work, he started to learn to relax on the couch and use the massage stick to relax his shoulder and back because he is always sitting there working in front of the computer.

“Hey Google, play some nature ambiance music. Good night!” Google Home speaker becomes an important part of sleep routine for him that the ambient noise like the stream, the firewood, and the forest, becomes his lullaby. With a machine called “See you in the dream” that can turn music into dream scenarios, he has been dreaming about being in peaceful and calm nature these days.

J is feeling better and on the journey of trying to his own of relaxing just like Ruobing. What he learned from Ruobing is that she tried very hard to make herself a happy person even though life is not as easy. Trying to avoid something that would keep you alert, but eat or drink something that would actually calm you down. This is Ruobing that she knows the obstacles or challenges are there, she would never try to avoid it but try to calm herself down and face it with thoughts and ideas.

The making process

I got stuck for several days for this story. I thought I would create something more fun, but not end up having a fun and interesting story; but I think J’s story is a representation of my current life and why I put these items into my time capsule that I think to represent me: it is not one single item that shows my personality, but the entire kit shows my attitude towards stress, bad things and challenges in life.

I started with the storyboard and sketches, and I was somewhat aiming for a comic book. My sketching skills are not ideal, but I also understand the purpose of this course that we should be comfortable presenting our imperfect work or prototype. I just started to draw out what is in my mind, with my imagination of how to showcase the past in with futuristic technology (well, a part of me believes all these can be actually invented in the future somehow, and that’s my hope). I used Sketchbook on iPad to sketch out my storyline.

For the next step, I tried to bring them into Illustration so I can design a comic book with grids. This is where I spend a lot of time again thinking about how to tell my story the best in the way that makes sense 1) in the 2146 as I described and imagined 2) to J, the main character of the story, that he can understand the reason of items in this relax advent box.

Then I started to work on the video. As planned, I was about to make a video that show how J interact with the Relax Advent box by using an online platform called Moovly. Halfway through the video, I started to ask myself the reason of converting the story from text to video — is it necessary? Does the video tell the readers more information? The answer is no. I stopped my work and started to brainstorm how to bring J, my Relax Advent box, and me together that I can connect everything I have been writing about on the previous write-ups and my working process. My final decision is to make the video as I showed at the beginning in Premiere Pro, with the clips of me working on it as a way to show my intentions of putting everything in the box. The video editing part isn’t a challenge for me but still took several hours.

I also added a voiceover to further explain the story. Here is the script:

Reflections

This is an intense 3-week-long project, especially the time we had from Part 2 to Part 3 — I did feel pretty stressed from brainstorming the story and producing the work (and yeah, my ways of relaxing are somewhat helping, but together with other things that happened this week, it wasn’t easy). I am glad that I pushed myself to do my best for each stage of the project that I really think through why I am doing the way I am doing. The project is an interesting way of showing design flow: from pitch to sketch and prototype, and lastly, the presentation of the prototype. If we have some more time, I would brainstorm better stories to present my design; even it’s a rush, I still tried my best to tell the story that makes sense.

What I learned the most from this project are:

• Be comfortable with my incomplete prototype, even sometimes it breaks off or doesn’t work perfectly. The prototype is a process for iteration, not a final product.
• Be creative and confident in telling a story in different ways, especially within the context of this project. Stories can further elaborate the design in a way that is easy to understand — that’s why storytelling is important for designers (I am associating it with UX/Product design particularly).
• Need to plan my time wiser that I don’t rush until the last minute (I don’t procrastinate, but the deadline is just so intense that I did rush).