To begin, let’s listen to the fireworks together.
For the history of a technology that is created by human beings, we chose to explain the history and the formation of modern fireworks to the heptapods.
The formation of the whole plague
According to the description of the heptapods in the book written by Ted Chiang, the aliens looked like “a barrel suspended at the intersection of seven limbs” and “seven lidless eyes ringed the top of the heptapod’s body.”(5) The unique body structure leads to their unique communication methods and their unique “logograms”(10). The description of their written language shows that their script “won’t be divided” and they divide the logograms by “rotating and modifying them”(11). Based on their usage of the logograms, the information of plague design is mainly presented in a circle that might show a general meaning.
What’s the history of fireworks?
The original fireworks came from ancient China. According to the records of historical books, gunpowder, the predecessor of fireworks, was first created and discovered by alchemists when refining medicine pills. In the design, the logo that is composed of 6 ovals represents the alchemy furnace.
In ancient times, when igniting fireworks, it can make a huge sound. So ancient people used it to scare back the evil spirits. So the second logo clockwise represents ghosts, showing why people used firecrackers at the time.
Fireworks spread to Eastern Europe and Middle East countries through the Silk Road to celebrate military activities and festivals. Therefore, this aircraft logo with tail smoke represents the transmission route of fireworks and its function.
Then the Italian inventors found that by adding different chemical elements to the fireworks, the fireworks can turn into colorful ones. So the logo represents a change from plain and uni-color to colorful and compound.
Finally, in most cities in China, due to the air pollution issues, it is forbidden to use fireworks for any reason, so at night, people cannot enjoy the beautiful fireworks and there is only a sky of plain black. This explains the design purpose of the final logo.
What’s the formation of the fireworks
Starting from the top right corner, the first one represents the main fuse to light the fireworks. This is followed by the stars for the inner circle of fireworks. Next are the time delay fuel, which is represented by the hand stopping time. The next layer is the fuel for the outer ring of fireworks. In order to maintain uniformity with the other elements, no color distinction is made for the two layers of fuel. The final part is the lift charge, which is used to eject the fireworks, so the pattern of ejection explosion is drawn.
The fireworks design
To have a more intuitive experience, we designed the whole logo to look like a firework. We created a background that looks like a firework and used a bokeh effect in the last layer to reflect the 3D effect, which is also similar to the look of the firework itself spreading out.
Moreover, our instruction is also an abstract firework. Not only does it consist of two concentric, but also the elements on it have a tendency to spread outward.
Finally, our instruction and the background form a complete firework, from abstract to figurative, exactly how the firework forms a pattern from small sparks. Since for heptapods, “They experienced all events at once, and perceived a purpose underlying them all”.(31)
Our design contains the embodiment of the whole process of releasing the fireworks, which suits their perception.
The meaning of fireworks for heptapods
Since heptapods have future predictability, for them, the application of things is just to perform, to implement, and to make things happen. For them, the meaning of life might be to fully immerse in events and enjoy the process.
While firework is also one of those things that we have known all the processes and results before it happens. But we still choose to set off fireworks because what is important is the performance. What is important is enjoying the process of fireworks blooming. Therefore, fireworks are in line with the perceptions of heptapods.
Criticism
However, even though we try to put the whole design into a hole so as to let the heptapods watch it and analyze it in a general way, the small elements are still separated and they aren’t related to each other closely. Also, we try to present the fireworks on the Earth by making it a colorful one, but we don’t know whether the heptapods have the cells to distinguish between different colors or not. So this part of the design might be useless and won’t help the heptapods to understand this technology deeper.