CritEx - <3 Wonder Project

Date: Saturday, 10/24/2026

Name: Janice Vuong

Class: Critical Experiences (IMALR-202)

Week: Week 6

Project 1 → <3 (wonder)

What is my guide

My topic from Critical Experience was inflatables. I had associated inflatables with party balloons, but it took me quite a few weeks to develop a stronger relationship, and find meaning what party balloons meant to me, and what type of guide I wanted to show the world.

Ultimately I created a guide to grand central terminal commuters, through the lens of a red heart balloon, but the journey was not as a straightforward as it seems.

My process and journey

From Week 3 🔗, creating diagrams from applying Systems Thinking. I had made an ecosystem map of party balloons. Ecosystem maps are a visual diagram about a: product/service environment/or a business

and you identify components such as: people, services, roles, objects, and technology of the key product/service environment/or business you are mapping about.

I did not make a mind map, mostly because I knew I wanted to focus on party balloons, and having extra studio time in class (thank you Chris!) this ecosystem map helped me brain dump of other relationships that exist in ecosystem of party balloons.

personal life influences: in the making of this project for Critical Experiences. I was my birthday! I held a celebration for my birthday and had friends and guavas to sing karaoke with me <3

However I didn’t even purchase balloons for my birthday. Because a part of me knew, that purchasing balloons in the city is difficult, and the logistics, and transportation as a pedestrian is difficult. ex. see Week 4 HW 🔗

being a pedestrian with balloons, is not for the faint of heart

It’s Week 5, and I’m learning about APIs (Application Programming Interface) in Connections Lab, how to you can use an API to “fetch” information from it (ike a library?) and have it displayed on a web-page.

At this point, I took the meaning guide literally, and thought it would be a good idea to kill-two-birds-one-stone → and create a web page on how to find party balloons near you!

I had so much fun, and play, trying to incorporate textures on the webpage like sound, and finding a balloon image from a REAL balloon store. Irrespective of Connections Lab, I knew I wanted to create something digitally for Critical Experiences

1. because that is what my hands wanted to make, and
2. I wanted to improve my skills on creating something digitally

Despite wanting to create something digitally, I still wanted roots in the physical world. This is why I wanted to find balloon images from REAL BALLOON STORES so badly, and to credit the stores in my project.

For this Project (untitled, Project 01) in Connections Lab, I ran into issues on how to actually have a “library”, an array of actual balloon stores. Since from Google Maps will have independent balloon artists, floral shops that sell balloons, stationary stores, and it was hard to narrow down stores that purely sell balloons for parties, for celebrations.

It also didn’t help, that I KNEW, Party City went bankrupted and MERGED with STAPLES. yes, the office supply store chain, so trying to have that show up in my array/library to “fetch” information

I ended up having to create my own array (ex. make a list of stores that I vetted sold party balloons) and to make it NOT new york city-centric, I added berlin and shanghai !! because those cities, all guavas will visit soon !!!!

i love new york city!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

personally as a transplant i do not know how much time i have left (morbid), but in the sense because i know i am a transplant here in new york, with shaky roots. i absolutely love it here, but i am scared it might be temporary.

so, i didn’t want to make this party balloon store finder, to be just selfishly new york store-based

(irony on reflecting back of what became my final project)

sorry that switch off capitalization, at times i do not love capitalization because it feels too serious (formal)

so i made a simple webpage that allows you to filter between the 3 cities (berlin, shanghai, and new york) and shows you a single party balloon store (THAT IS OPEN AND REAL) that you can visit to buy balloons for a party.

it is extremely simple, because i knew myself, and this was a difficult new medium and skill to learn! (coding, especially css and javascript)

the feedback i got from Connections Lab was that folks expected a twist

like folks did not expect this to be a real party balloon store finder

like a rick-roll situation (an internet reference on a bait-and-switch prank, that takes the user, to Rick Astley’s song “Never Gonna Give You Up”)

so this brought me back to thinking about: surprise! and delight!

i love surprise and delight, and i know i try to incorporate it my own pieces, projects, and now practice (yay!) because i feel that the world is hard, scary, sad, and difficult- so making small elements of joy to brighten up folks’ day (or at least my day, LOL)

so I still had nothing for Critical Experiences, i made untitled for Connections Lab, but it didn’t feel right for CritEx

Discovering What Inspires Me

I was super lucky that in Weeks 4-5, a huge event (a huge event to me) had occurred in Grand Central Terminal that would be my source of inspiration for my project for Critical Experiences

In my Week 4 HW 🔗, a discord channel I am a part of about NYC pop-ups had informed me that the shiny red heart balloon had departed from the ceiling of Grand Central Terminal

Something about the:

a cute red-heart shaped balloon … stuck on the ceiling among the Pisces constellations of stars

was so ~inspiring~ and cute, and lovely, and AAAAA i love it so much

also so much CONTRAST like a RED balloon against a TEAL ceiling

and even STAR CONSTELLATIONS 🌌

The Process of Making

In my notebook, I had sketched out my thoughts and notes on how I felt about the red heart balloon

I wanted a red heart balloon, to be on the web page for the project

now back to Connections Lab untitled (Project 01) process blog post 🔗

I had actually spent a good 30 minutes on Myinstants, a website that has sound effects, [and] I listened to a lot of different pop! sounds, and chose one that sounded satisfying to me

What I didn’t cover in Connections Lab 🫢 , was that I accidentally heard 99 Red Balloons by Nena, when I was searching for balloon pop sounds on MyInstants too.

so many!! signs!! can i say the were stars aligning for me?

a RED heart balloon, a very catchy protest “pop” song that mentions RED balloons

About [not] Pisces Constellation

in speaking of stars, i also try to think of how to tie pisces in my project

i do not have pisces in my big 3 (sun, moon, or rising) so i don’t know much about the sign other than they are water signs, and features a pair of fishes

what better way, than to learn from a BABY BOOK

in reference, when I did meet with Margaret, in HW 2 🔗 it was a great starting point of learning what resources are out there, to research academically, and scholastically

however we both could not find a single book of the origins of balloons (regarding like party, birthday celebration culture).

later in my research (hours on Google), i found there was a children book that has a brief history on the party balloons and how it started

RIP except now looking back, I did not even pin the blog post on my Are:na board, and I can’t find it my search history. what I DO remember is that I wanted to purchase the book, because well it was like an old book from the 70s? and that I could not check it out on NYU Bobst Catalog nor the NYPL so I would need to purchase a copy of this children’s book that someone is selling on Etsy.

Present day: I did not obviously go in that direction and buy the children’s book, but it was a great reminder that when learning a complex topic or something new-to-me, I should check out children literature first

so yeah, I found a baby book called “Dear Little Pisces” and no it was not available on NYU Bobst Catalog nor the NYPL [x2] ← striking out on children books dang

HOWEVER there is a wealth of people doing audio narration of baby books on YouTube?

so I listened to “Dear Little Pisces” on YouTube 🔗

from that I thought, why not write a few couplets on Pisces?

I won’t even attach my bad attempts on this blog post, because … well I am not a poet

I guess this is a long winded explanation, on why I did not pull inspiration on Pisces in my project on Critical Experiences in case anyone comes after me

Pulling from Grand Central Architecture, Color, Inspiration

I went full steam ahead on recreating the scene of the red heart balloon that is resting on the grand central terminal ceiling through using Speculative Design

Speculative Design: What you imagine for something - what it could create, become, embody

Wikipedia Commons is a free-to-use online repository of images, sounds, videos, and more from the Wikimedia Foundation. And luckily, there is a BEAUTIFUL shot of the Grand Central Terminal ceiling from Arnoldius on the Wikipedia page of Grand Central Terminal Art.

I wanted the Hero image of my webpage to be the Grand Central Terminal Ceiling art, which was painted by Paul Cesar Helleu

This was photographed by Wikipedia user, Arnoldius

A hero of a webpage, is the first thing visitors, see, when landing on the website. It is a large, prominent focus that is displayed right below the navigation bar / and or site header. The name hero, is taken from theater and film, the “hero” or main character of the story.

The colors of the webpage are inspired by the architecture of Grand Central Terminal, which was the architect, Whitney Warren

Incorporating sound (a callback from untitled 🔗, Project 01 in Connections Lab) and music, “99 Balloons” by artist, Nena

Creating Interaction

On feedback from untitled, Project 01 in Connections Lab, folks really liked hearing the “pop” sound and came back to hearing it again and again

Incorporating the action of bubble wrap, why not have the webpage visitors be able, not exactly pop balloons (because i do not want destruction), but placing balloons to create a satisfying pop sound?

Grand central terminal commuters had MISSED the red heart balloon, so how silly, and lovely to be able to add to a webpage full of little red heart balloons ❤️

also after placing about 5 red heart balloons on the webpage, 99 Balloons by Nena would play in the background

a “clear balloons” button, for removing balloons was designed

as well as an “about” button and webpage as well for me to explain the meaning behind this project

Building out a Story

On building out the story of the red heart balloon, the origin, and sentiments, and departure, I went back on the internet to form a timeline for the story (see Week 4 HW 🔗)

The news outlets: New York Times 🔗, New York Post 🔗, and NBC News 🔗, and more, had covered the red balloon and how it ended up there, but not so much the ongoing admiration of the red heart balloon by the people traveling through Grand Central Terminal. For that, I went on social media platforms like Instagram and Reddit to capture sentiments from the people.

Gathering screenshots from Instagram posts that had dates from Spring and Summer of 2026 which captured sentiments, feelings, and thoughts of those who admired the red heart balloons in Grand Central Terminal (GCT), and took time out of their day to photograph and share a message

I also stumbled on this Reddit 🔗 post , that had a lot of discussion about the heart-shaped balloon on the ceiling of the Grand Central Terminal

Lots of redditors were moved about this image, and about the heart shaped balloon being stuck on the ceiling in Grand Central Terminal. To “look forward to the sight of the balloon”, every time they are in Grand Central Terminal, or it being an “allegory for life”.

and then I was able to piece my own timeline for the heart balloon, from the start, the summer, and the departure 💔

Final Design Changes

To build out the timeline on the “about” page of my project, i decide to name the button to: about / guide

This would allow me to go more in depth, about the timeline, the journey, the store of the red heart balloon in grand central terminal.

This screenshot displays the heart balloon color choices i made for each milestone/month of the story for 2026. mapping out the story points, and what i wanted to include. and the intentional design of each heart balloon color choice, and especially using silver color for the (or is it? - timeline story point)

silver → being a silver lining

Project Name and Why

On internet culture, I love the old school emoticons like the ascii type style art

heart balloon is really basic, and I just wanted to call this piece <3 balloon

<3 IS SO ANNOYING IN CODE, YOU CAN’T JUST TYPE “<3”

anyway despite that, i learn i must use &alt;3 for <3

how do you even pronounce <3, less than 3? its not the same

Are:na Connection

i got a notification on Are:na someone connected to my board and I THOUGHT I WAS HACKED

on someone who is private about her making, i had a sudden realization that are:na boards are not private by default (??!!)

i quickly saw what the notification was about, and was comforted that something that i wrote as a DRAFT, was noticed by someone else to add to their collection on: Speaking Wonder

i was so touched. like again, i am no writer, no poet, i just have a lot of thoughts (Inattentive Type ADHD), so not hyperactive physical presence, but very MUCH HYPERACTIVE THOUGHTS. i used to get in trouble in class for spacing out, or being too talkative. so anyways i have never met this person, but i am so emotionally moved that someone else in this world that the words i was describing this heart balloon as SPEAKING WONDER, made me definitely want to name this project → wonder

well → project name: <3 (wonder)

project link 🔗 → https://heart-wonder.jklv.workers.dev/

Reflections 🌐

1️⃣ so idk why I decide to actually piece together the heart balloon timeline, the NIGHT BEFORE this project was due but that is what happened. i think possibly that because i knew this is all over the internet, it is there, but it was a lot more time consuming than i realize.

2️⃣ feedback to add balloons permanent: i think i am almost there in my learning, in Connections Lab class, about to learn next weeks on Servers (on how to store data). but i’m not sure if the direction, to have a whole bunch of balloons to remind permanently on the page.. maybe it will look too cluttered?

3️⃣ however, i did end up making a change to make 1 balloon permanent, the original heart balloon

i had to figure the x and y coordinates through developer tools on the webpage

4️⃣ a better way to display the collection of stories, comments, social media posts about the heart balloon. i think the timeline works for what i can reasonable do, in my very new skills in javascript.

5️⃣ this is definitely a HUGE jump in my skills this new form / medium for me, because 3 weeks ago in Connections Lab [post link 🔗]. i reflected that i want to keep my project files minimal, because i am learning how to code, and i don’t want to overwhelm myself adding a lot of features, animations, because things can break, and this project file itself has over 20 asset files!!! 😬

Annotated Bibliography / References