Love Transactions: decoding Messages of Love.

Love Transactions: decoding messages of love, aims to explore the complexity of gift-giving in a romantic context. ‘Gifts’, in this context, are defined as to tangible (objects) and non-tangible (gestures) and are an embedded ritual in the dating through to the commitment stages of a relationship As its starting point the project draws upon both academic literature as well as personal anecdotes amongst university students living in Sydney. Primary research has shown that women are too familiar with ‘the wasted gift’ because gift-giving is not just about the physical gift itself, but the meaning behind it which is dependent on factors such as the context of the relationship, the motive, and the way that it is presented and packaged. Further, women fail to inform their partners of what it is exactly that they want; as such men draw notions of ‘romantic’ ideas from the commercialised world.

This project uses economic terminology to frame gift-giving behaviours and also references the historical roots of gift-giving as fundamentally an economic exchange disguised as a social activity:
1. Investment – looking at the standard stereotypical gifts that have been commercialised by the retail industry;
2. Depreciation – factors that impact on the value of the gift/gesture;
3. No Value – focuses on the non-material gestures

The target audience will be the ‘young adult consumer.’ While, the underlying message is to visualise this complex information for men, (in the hope that they understand this ritual a little better) it is also for women to see how hard they make it for men to conquer this.

At this point in time, the final outcome will be presented as a print piece which will have tactile elements to complement each chapter. The data will be visualised as a mixture of funky information design (annual report-like) and puzzles, maps, codes etc, for the target audience to decipher as essentially that is what men are doing – decoding what women want/need/would love.