Media Design Program | Art Center College of Design

Chinese Menu Manifesto

Authoring Critical Media

What is your manifesto to the world?

This exercise started with this question and the point was to express one's opinion to the public.
The theme of this project was mainly chose because a Chinese restaurant I visited everyday. I was very much bothered by the different kind of eating habits when I first arrived the States. Therefore, the Chinese restaurant near our studio became the place I visited frequently. I found the food I liked but at the same time I was struggle whenever I saw their menu. It's the typical kind of menu that everyone is very familiar with. You could easily find one at a Chinese restaurant near you. The layout was stiff and for some reasons, they all had dots beside every dish. If you follow the dots, they always lead you to the price. So, when I had the chance to play with the subject, I seized my chance.

The manifesto was to express my struggle with Chinese menu. I used a fictional organization (Chinese Food Lover's Group) with sarcastic rules about the new menu design. Some of the rules were referred to the Feng Shui and superstition phenomena in my culture.

At the end, this was an exercise that I wish I could have a second chance. Not because I don't like it, but I would like to write a manifesto that would encourage people when they are down or motivate myself when things aren't going as well as I planed it.