Joy Wu is a graphic designer graduated from Harvard Graduate School of Design (MDes) and School of Visual Arts (BFA). She’s featured in NYC Type Directors Club, Art Directors Club, SVA.edu, SVA Spring Show, Asia Pacific APC13, CO2 Competition, The Light City, South Korea IOAF, Pentagram Design, and Graphis New Talents. Hosted HarvardxDesign Annual Conference, Workshops collaborated with IDEO, participated at MIT delta v and Sloan Design Club.

Previously worked in United Nations as a project manager and chief designer, Pentagram as a designer, The Egg House as a senior designer, and RYF Creative as a creative director.

Start-up Project Experience (Co-Founder): I joined MIT delta v 2024 and co-founded a creative art start-up project, All Unique Objects (AUO). I led the team to design a web app tool that helps designers easily convert text, images, and sketches into 3D models. AUO streamlines the 3D design process, allowing designers to focus on creativity while the platform handles the technical conversion into high-quality, production-ready 3D files. We’ve secured 4 Letters of Intent from industry-leading premium home decor studios, launched pilot programs this month, and have over 50 designers and studios on our waitlist. AUO aims to transform the 3D design industry, starting with home decor, by reducing design time by up to 50%, empowering designers to bring their ideas to life faster and more efficiently.

Presenter: Chen Huang
Designer & Director: Joy Wu
Team: Dan Kim (Co-Founder), Chen Huang, Art Zahar, Faraz Faruqi, Yunyi Zhu
Commercial Video Shooting: 4:3 Collective
Commercial Video Script: Joy Wu

Workshop Organization and 3D Web Tool Design (Collaborated with IDEO): A design research workshop with community members that applies systems thinking to ideate systemic solutions for a climate case. In this workshop, our challenge was “How might we bring more climate-winner seafood to local markets?”

The workshop divided all the participants into 3 groups: Consumer, Supplier, and Policy Maker. Each group should understand their perspective, identify all the variables in the system, look for key factors, and finish the challenge loop!

I also created a 3Js web tool that allows you to rotate, zoom in and out, and move around. Participants could write down their key factors in the box, and their words or phrases will appear in real-time on the digital ocean. My data visualization tool "Digital Ocean" serves as a digital data visualization platform designed to enhance participants' understanding of complex systems and relationships, this tool applies systems thinking to ideate systemic solutions for seafood. Through the "Digital Ocean," participants can explore and visualize key factors, understand interconnections between different groups, and gain insights to inform collaborative decision-making processes.

Conference Organizing + Design: I’m leading this year’s HarvardxDesign conference with Deepika, Ghalya, and Margret.

HarvardxDesign is an annual conference launched in 2012 and led by students at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. This year, the 2024 conference, themed CO-, focuses on the processes and practices of working directly with the systems, communities, and people who would be users. We aim to explore the future of design practice through the lenses of collaborating with and for people, the environment, and machines. I’m in charge of all the visuals, social media, and some parts of the experience throughout the conference.

We have 3 panels that are co-hesion, co-exist, and co-llaboration. I also designed an interactive tool with Selin and Jianna. At the heart of our initiative is creating an interactive tool that allows participants to craft their own 'floral' avatars by responding to questions related to the conference topics. These avatars serve as visual representations of each participant's unique identity and perspectives. During the conference, participants will plant their avatars into a digital garden projected on screens throughout the venue, creating a vibrant and dynamic display and fostering engagement and connections.

At the End of the conference day, the MIT Sloan Design Club collaborated with us for a social networking session; we gave each participant a question list and asked them to approach people and get connected by the list, including the questions I designed in the tool. Everyone could comfortably start chatting and connecting with other people because almost all had already participated in the digital garden! They could share commonalities and compare their avatars to understand each other deeper than casual dialogues.

3D Computational Design + Motion Graphics: In Endurance in Solitude, we explore the intimate relationship between an individual and the private space in which they experience physical pain in solitude.

Using the precise tracking capabilities of HTC Vive Controllers, we have captured and visualized the intricate movements of a performer navigating pain, transcending its conventional categorization. These movements span a spectrum of vulnerability, including rolling on the bed, staggering, curling up, and slumping. Physical pain, an inescapable part of the human experience, is often endured in isolation.

The recording environment is designed to resemble a single-person bedroom, with a corresponding 3D scene crafted to mirror the performer’s real-time actions. Our creation both highlights the experience of pain and celebrates the profound human capacity for resilience and beauty amidst adversity. The organic 3D forms carry a biological undertone; delicate tentacles trace the movement paths, symbolizing the body’s sensory response to pain. Moments of acute, paroxysmal pain manifest as larger, more pronounced forms—resembling alien joints or organic molecular structures—that freely creep through space, offering a vivid and evocative representation of these challenges.

Through this work, we aim to emphasize the inherent beauty in overcoming pain and embracing strength within moments of vulnerability.

3D Computational Design: “Simulation Paradox” is an animated exploration of the elusive boundaries between perception, reality, and time. Inspired by the “Brain in a Vat” hypothesis, it imagines reality as a digital simulation constructed by an omnipotent supercomputer. The animation unfolds with a car journeying through a tunnel, symbolizing the conventional belief of a one-way stream of consciousness that parallels the linear progression of time. As the vehicle moves forward, the tunnel segments behind disintegrate into a cascade of particles. This tunnel is a metaphorical and literal passage through a simulated reality that exists solely in the presence of consciousness.

3D Computational Design + Motion Graphics: “Eternal Cycle” represents the raw reality of natural decay with the contemporary dialogue on digital existence and immortality.

In an era where digital life and the quest for digital eternity dominate discussions, our work offers a poignant reflection on the true essence of mortality and its impact on our life choices and perceptions.

This visual narrative explores the process of the human body returning to the earth, which challenges the ritualized notions of modern death. It confronts the often-dreaded concept of dying unnoticed in nature, a fate shared by the vast majority of life forms on our planet. Yet, within this seemingly tragic end, there emerges a powerful narrative about the resilience of human life – the belief, both blind and beautiful, that humanity will persist in some form on this planet.

Through this exploration, we question the perceived singular traits of humankind and the foundations of such beliefs. In the context of contemporary discussions about digital life and immortality, “Eternal Cycle” prompts a reevaluation of “mortality.” What does it mean in a world increasingly focused on digital perpetuation? Is there a profound, perhaps overlooked, eternity in our physical return to the earth within the unceasing life cycle of the planet?

Workshop Design & Planning: Loneliness and disconnection affect 37-62%of Harvard graduate students.

We are a team of students from the GSD and HSPH that hope to create a new space for students to connect with others across varied interests, identities, and academic paths and learn to be deeply curious.

Inspired by the DIVE Model for Deep Curiosity developed by Scott Shigeoka, a curiosity expert at the University of Texas Austin, Curios will gather members of the Harvard graduate community to engage in Deep Curiosity practices that blend stories, science, and the collective wisdom of our lived experiences.

What is something you carry from Home that you brought to Harvard?

Installation: We created an installation mimicking a nuclear blast on a small scale while ensuring the safety of the audience. Using sound, light, smoke, and heat, we have created a realistic and immersive experience that helps the audience comprehend the power and force of the explosion.

Showcased at the Harvard GSD event (hosted by Snobs): "Front Door: Dialogue For Our Future on Planet Earth" (Supported by the City of Hiroshima & Hidenori Watanave Laboratory, The University of Tokyo, and featured on NHK World's "Isamu Noguchi's unfinished Hiroshima Cenotaph revisited")

Motion graphics: Title Sequence for movie Rashomon by Kurozawa Akira.

Promotional campaign for the 2018 festival of free performances presented by The Public Theater in Central Park. Othello and Twelfth Night are the featured productions in the 2018 edition of Shakespeare in the Park, the annual free performances presented by The Public Theater at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park. Pentagram has created the promotional campaign for the season, which combines striking extended typography, a fresh color palette and the tagline “Be in the Park.”

Guidance: Paula Scher

Motion Graphics: Does Everybody Dream?