Process
Originally I had the idea of producing an interactive catalogue.
This consisted of 3 types of the same object (in my case 3 hand sanitizers, one for each family member) and comparing their qualities or ‘translations’ against each other. I wanted to create an interactive catalogue in the form of a personal user interface, letting my audience choose between the different sizes, scents, colours, costs etc. This would have been a suitable format because it would let my audience compare between the objects, letting them find their most suitable match.
As you can see by the length of my thumbnail sketches below, ultimately comparing 12 separate categories across 3 different objects in a simple user-friendly way was confusing both functionally and visually. I had a creative block on this idea and ended up having to move onto producing a more simple catalogue last minute.
My new catalogue focuses on the memories of the objects and the narratives behind the people in my family who gifted me those objects:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/19PsfHq6WVIGMypYCzor29EPe39Vgx7il?usp=sharing
sketches for an simple app
Your initial idea of comparing hand sanitizers through interaction, and the supporting table of comparison is fascinating, yet unresolved. This idea could be explored and enacted, how could you user test the idea? Could you test the ideas and interaction of your family? It does not need to be a digital/coded interactive outcome — it could be the documentation of your family’s interaction with the information and products. I recommend you persevere with this idea, through testing, iteration and activating it.
The publication that you submitted, does appear ‘last minute’, in which you have fallen into familiar aesthetic territory, it ‘looks’ good but feels as though you are hiding behind it. The content is in conflict with the design approach. That is not to say that is not ‘good’ — I feel that you have played it safe, as opposed to working through the ‘creative’ block you mentioned.
Moving forward, consider approaches, procedures and methods to assist you in working through ‘creative blocks’ one is to experiment, test and iterate — essentially fast prototyping of ideas.