Final Project: The Fast Food Industry

Topic: Growth of the Fast Food Industry (1970-1990)
Group members: Tiffany Chen, Brandon Cheung, Jay Dubashi, and Victor Zhu.

Our theme was the development and growth of the fast food industry. We gathered information on three fast food chains: Wendy's, McDonald's, and Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC). We researched their development from the 1970's to the 1990's (such as mascots and food products), advertising methods, and their growth in terms of number of locations throughout the years. We chose this topic because fast food has become a very large part of American culture (and is expanding to countries around the world).

We decided to make our box in the shape of a retro burger box by manually cutting apart obnoxiously large cardboard boxes, duct taping the pieces together, and then covering it up with white paper. Although it was difficult, the process was fun and definitely required a large amount of teamwork. The box, you could say, was homage to the old style of burger packaging. Old slogans from 1970-1990 decorate the box, as well as pictures/representations of the three fast food chains we researched. Inside the box, maps of the world are on all sides, top and bottom. The maps depict the locations of the fast food chains in the 1970 and the 1990--needless to say, the number of locations of each fast food chain has dramatically increased throughout the years. Also in the box are three burgers (all hand-made from cardboard, construction paper, shopping bags, and duct-tape): one for each fast food chain. The burgers have three layers aside from the buns: cheese, lettuce, and meat. The cheese shows examples of the advertisement advertisements each fast food company used, the lettuce contains pictures of each fast food company along with their mascots, and the meat has a timeline giving important dates and facts that related to each fast food chain.

Our slogans, visual aids, and information were found on various websites--the materials we used were all recyclable material: cardboard, duct-tape, scotch tape, construction paper, and white paper. We gathered the cardboard from multiple stores' recycling bins.

Unfortunately, although there were many sources and documentaries on the topic of the fast food industry available for use, they were all from after 1990, rendering them ineligible to be used for our project. We made due with what we could with limited access to certain items, such as toys, and we are proud of what we have accomplished.

If we could do this project again, we would probably choose a topic that gave way to more 'usable' found art. We would also do more research on each fast food chain, and possible add a fourth. Also, more visuals would be added.

For next year's class, I highly recommend choosing a topic that they are passionate about. I also recommend keeping in constant contact with their group members and planning out every step so that everyone contributes. Also, they should not procrastinate on the production on the box--they get it done as soon as possible so that if there's any last minute changes that need to be made, they can be made with less time pressure. Another good idea is to always have a backup plan: often, things don't go quite as planned. If they're prepared, it'll turn out okay in the end. Another suggestion is to be as creative as possible; just because it's a school assignment, it doesn't mean they can't have fun doing it! They should take bold risks and really make the project their own instead of some copy of someone else's!

- Tiffany Chen