shop ultimate happiness merch…

finished date: 2020 May

material: Paper, polypropylene, and silicone

Fast-food is our shortcut to Utopia.

When it comes to American culture, fast-food is undeniably dominant and has taken the advantage to expand worldwide with the force of globalization. The ever-growing industry brings the service of convenience and a source of joy, promoted idyllically in advertisements for the young. While under the bright-warm yellow and red signage, the image is often associated with health and environmental concerns. From French fries to hamburgers, people consume fast-food for various reasons. Ultimate Happiness (UH) dives into the irony of fast-food, delivering a product that is even faster, cheaper, and more accessible compared to current business models.

According to the CDC’s data in 2018*, low-income individuals are not major fast-food customers. While poorer neighborhoods are more likely to have higher exposure to fast-food, people consume more when their income levels go up. This affordable indulgence is especially popular among young adults aged 20 to 39, who also make up the largest share of the US labor force. As simple as it seems, a quick-served meal may deliver more than we could imagine; it also shows how different social classes react to the issue inside a box of nuggets.

Speedy mass-produced food serves more purposes nowadays than just filling up travelers' and workers' stomachs. Our impressions of fast-food may be a lot more delightful since these businesses tried their best to shift our focus from pre-made foods to something fresh and healthy. Packaging has always been a vital element when it comes to take-aways. The UH collection brings the sale price down by single-packaging the nuggets and fries with pre-dipped sauces while highlighting the quantity with health measurements. Single pre-dipped nuggets and fries are cheaper and faster to produce by default, but the over-packaged design generates unnecessary waste.

‘The One’ nugget pack further emphasizes the rarity of collectible fast-food with a premium touch of metallic texture; the veggie pack gathers the most nutritious but undesirable part of burgers and sandwiches. The dystopian reality of fast-food culture is the irony of Ultimate Happiness. The making of UH collection is cohesively related to the mass-production technique with the repetitive process and low-cost materials involved. By proposing an alternate reality, audiences are expected to explore the possibility in response to the current social structure with the world of fast-food. Through visual exaggeration, UH hopes to bring both the good and bad elements of fast-food into one small packaged item.

UH… is Ultimate Happiness.

Fries Pack | 108 x 63 mm / 4.25 x 2.5 in

Nugget Pack | 120 x 82 x 25 mm / 4.75 x 3.25 x 1 in

Veggie Pack | 171 x 120 x 31 mm / 6.75 x 4.75 x 1.25 in

Citation:
Fryar CD, Hughes JP, Herrick KA, Ahluwalia, N. Fast food consumption among adults in the United States, 2013–2016. NCHS Data Brief, no 322. Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics. 2018.

The idea of UH is about structuring the realm of ultimacy in fast-food and its contradictory component in the socioeconomic perspective.