VENERATION
Created for SparkJam, a 10 day design jam for student designers in Vancouver. This year’s theme:
Digitizing the Past — Reimagining Cultural Relics and Traditions in a Digital Age.
Veneration is a digital microsite that preserves and reimagines the Chinese tradition of joss paper burning. A ritual rooted in honoring ancestors in the afterlife.
Team
Role
Year
Tools
Clark Tanquerido
Jeff Orsino
Harry Shiu
Art Direction
Motion Design
UI/UX Design
2025
Adobe CC
Figma
FRAMING
Tradition
Joss paper are sheets of paper burnt as offerings to deceased relatives and deities in Chinese ancestral worship. It is intended to provide sufficient means to those in the afterlife and deeply engrained in Chinese culture. Burned by both younger and older generations, different types such as gold, silver and copper paper symbolize various offerings for different recipients.
Problem Space
Due to environmental and health concerns, bans and restrictions have made the practice increasingly inaccessible especially in urban settings in China. Digital mediums for worship are unable to provide emotional significance and spiritual comfort of the real thing. There is a growing need for a suitable digital memorial.
Seeking a Solution
How might we reimagine the traditional Chinese practice of burning joss paper in order to provide practitioners a sustainable alternative while retaining its symbolism and visual expression?
To draw in the user emotionally, they scroll through context of the joss paper tradition and why a digital version is needed. A simple narrative breaks up the context sections, featuring a conversion between a mother teaching her child about the ritual.
Users can choose their offering and customize it with a personalized message.
Using After Effects, I created the offering experience as an interactive scroll where the paper ascends with each scroll, its subtle resistance mirroring the emotional challenge of letting go.
ART DIRECTION
Using Photoshop, a more graphic represention of foiled joss paper in the interface was created with custom brushes and textures.
REFLECTION
As a team, we identified a meaningful problem space with design intervention. However, spending too much time on this phase limited our time for ideation, iteration, and user testing. A stricter sprint schedule with clear micro-deadlines would have ensured better time distribution across all stages.
