Collaborate – Evaluation

What went well?

Activism Project: Our research and idea generation went well as we all seemed to be on the same page of what we wanted visually and textually. All of us had suggestions to consider and we were very quick in establishing and agreeing on ideas. As a group, we covered all grounds of details and specifications on all aspects of the campaign right at the beginning of the process. We had made a clear distribution of work which everyone stuck to.

Protest Project (groping): We had all established our strengths and weaknesses early on in the process in order to understand what work would be given to who. We were quick when making final decisions of ideas.

Protest Project (Mental Health): Our communication and work ethic was excellent. All were willing to meet up after hours for brainstorming and idea generation which gave us all a constant clear idea of what each of us was doing work wise. We had established and selected ideas quickly which meant that we were able to get on with our work as soon as possible. The group had a nice friendly atmosphere and were willing to get involved and send information whenever needed.

 

What did I learn?

After both projects, I have learnt that communication is key. If no communication is made the whole group becomes confused on design aspects and the work seems inconsistent. Communication means that everyone in the group brings forward their own ideas and suggestions otherwise the workload becomes very one-sided. It is also important that everyone is on board with the decisions made and that they are willing to go out their way to meet up and take part. Meeting up also helps with ensuring consistency.

 

What didn’t go as well as expected?

Activism Project: Even though we communicated, I believe we could’ve done it better. If not in university the group chat we had made was quite quiet and could’ve been quicker with replies and more straight forward with answers. We should’ve been sending constant updates of our work through images in order to ensure consistency. Also, sending work could’ve been quicker.

Protest Project (groping): The communication was lacking hard as most of the time it felt that I and Anna were the only ones sending work and discussing it. I also felt that a lot of the idea generation was mine as the group didn’t really suggest a lot and would remain quiet. Work was missing form some people and could’ve been sent a lot quicker and should’ve been shown for updates. A lot of the time I felt in the dark as I never knew what anyone was doing apart from Anna which was disappointing.

 

What would I do differently next time?

Next time I would ensure that everyone understands that communicating is key and that updates on work need to be made continuously. Meet ups need to happen more often in order for the group to remain on the same page throughout. I also believe that I could’ve played around more with my sketches.

 

How did I use my skills to contribute?

 I used my skills of idea generating consistently throughout each of the projects. It is one of my strongest skills as I am able to create a variation of visual ideas. I believe I am friendly and communicate well, making sure that everyone feels comfortable with their workload and the ideas that are selected. I make sure to update people on the work that I have done to avoid confusion. I make sure to send my work on time so the other members aren’t seeing it last minute or late at night. I arrive at meet ups on time and attend unless ill.

  

Did I attend, engage and commit fully to my project?

 My attendance was good and I made sure to attend all the meet ups arranged out of hours. I made sure to engage fully with my group and also with the work ensuring that they were completed on time and efficiently. I was passionate about all projects I was involved with and so it gave me a better work ethic. I made sure to do the work we had all agreed on in order to avoid confusion and keep consistency.

 

How has the process helped me to develop as a designer?

 As a designer, I am more aware of what is required of a team when involved in a group task. I now know the key elements to achieve a successful outcome and how to distribute work. I have also learnt that everyone has a different style and that it’s important to alter your work when combining it with others to keep consistency. My designs have more thought and context behind them.

 

How did I consider the audience, tone and communication of the project?

 Throughout both projects, I ensured that the work I created would appear clear and thoughtful for the audience. Giving the work understandable messages with context and visual metaphors. As some of our topics were sensitive i.e. organ donation, groping, mental health, I wanted to approach them sensitively and professionally with the audience’s feelings and opinions in mind. I also did this with the visuals used as I didn’t want to create any negativity.

Collaborate – Placards (Mental Health)

Moving to my new group wasn’t too difficult, they were very welcoming and filled me in extremely well on their ideas and the work they had done in previous tasks. My new group’s protest was based on mental health. I was very happy with this as it is another subject that I am familiar with and I am passionate about.

I had to quickly get myself up to date and so I asked if Shannon (one of the members) would send me her blog in order for me to understand their style. After looking at their work, I could see that their colour palette was very simple and dark using mainly black and white throughout. Their images were also black and white and had a lot of outlining as their drawing style.

After ensuring that I understand their aesthetic and themes I began searching for ideas of my own for our new task. Placards traditionally have a very simple layout using mainly text to convey their messages. This is to ensure that whoever witnesses them can read their messages clearly and quickly so there only requires little focus to understand. Also, the text that is used is usually short as a longer message would bore the reader and make them less intrigued. Colour within placards vary as it depends what the subject is i.e. a feminist placard would use more pinks. I wanted to keep to these traditional design features as my work would then be more obviously labelled as a placard.

 

Stanley Green Placard Design

 In our brief, we were asked to create a Stanley Green version of a placard to go with our protest. His placards have very simple designs with just black and white colouring and large sans serif text. His placards aren’t as traditional as they use more text than usual and he also adds small messages hanging separately from underneath. It was lucky for us that his style is mainly black and white colouring as we had already decided that a black and white theme would apply to our protest more. It would also make them possibly stand out from the very colourful placards of our peers. Green also uses many semi-colons in his work which is perfect for us as the semi-colon is a very popular symbol of mental health.

After brainstorming some ideas for the text, we decided that “Don’t let them sit in silence, be their voice” would be an effective slogan to use due to the imagery the group had bad previously (of people’s mouths being covered). It was also a positive message that was strong and demanding.

As a group, we came together to create the A2 sized placard in order to make its design fair. We covered the entire placard with black paper for the background in order to save time and paint. Shannon and I had typed out the slogan on Adobe Illustrator on two A3 pages (to create A2) in a large sans serif typeface in order to mimic Green’s work. After printing the text out the whole group cut out the letters. The letters were stuck onto the placard as we used them to create outlines. We decided that dabbing white paint around the letters would give an interesting effect and texture. We peeled the paper letters off and it created a blurred effect around the text which symbolises the blurred ideas that many have regarding mental health. To many individuals, understanding mental health is difficult to them and they may have misconceptions of what it may be. I was extremely happy with its outcome as it was similar to Green’s but also represented our aesthetic too.

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Personal placards

We had all agreed that we would each create at least one placard each to use in our protest. I had written down the list of slogans we had all agreed to in order to spark some visual ideas.

 My favourites were “Let’s talk about mental health” and “;”. As the semi-colon was such a simple design we all agreed to make one version of it each. My first idea was to create a speech bubble in order to connect with the word ‘talk’ in “Let’s talk about…”. I played with different ways of using the speech bubble by sketching out different layouts.

I also thought about how I could use the iphone speech bubbles used when texting. This would connect the previous work the group did which was regarding technology and mental health. For the text, I could create a conversation between two people (one being with mental health issues) with one of the friends trying to help the other by asking them if they’re okay and whether they would like to discuss their problems. I would use this conversation as an example of what many should do when it comes to mental health. Friends should offer support and the people who are suffering should speak out. I sketched out this idea to see how it could look as a final product.

 

 I quickly realised that this design would be very awkward to create. I initially wanted to make it digital but I wouldn’t be able to print it in A2. I then though about painting the placard but it was so big and the image is too detailed that I wouldn’t have been able to finish it and create another placard (and I also wouldn’t have been able to paint it to look exact). It was disappointing but it wasn’t reasonable to create the design due to its obstacles.

 

In the end, I reverted to the original ideas I had at the beginning of my process which was the “Let’s talk about…”. I decided to try painting the designs instead on A4 pieces of paper as the paint can make a big difference to the visuals and outcome.

 

I decided to go with the mouth and ‘dry brushing’ semi-colon designs. The two standed out to me more as they have a more unique visual. The black and white mixed well with the images and still made them look modern and clear. The mouth design I had painted on an A2 placard and painted normally in order to get block colours. The semi-colon was made on an A3 placard and I used a dry brushing method to create its patchy background.

For the text, I had used the same method as the Stanley Green placard by printing out the text, cut out the letters and stuck them onto the card. Although this time I had to outline the text with a pencil and then fill it in with paint.

The mouth design was my favourite as it stood out and played on the word talk. It visually shows what is required of the audience (which is to talk).

Final result

Collaborate – Oxymoron (groping)

For our Oxymoron task, we chose to use “Pretty Ugly” as we believed it applied to groping. The groper can appear nice but have bad intentions and so we brainstormed some ideas on what visual metaphors we could make. We came up with:

• A devil in a suit
• A sexualized devil woman
• A snake holding and apple (Adam and Eve story)
• Half a face ripped open with a demonic face underneath
• A siren
• A chest with a demon hidden inside

We believed all of these visuals would be well suited to the oxymoron and to our protest. When sketching our ideas, I decided to have a try of drawing the snake and devil woman as the two were my ideas.  Holly was absent therefore, Anna sketched the chest, Rosie sketched the faces and Naomi sketched the siren and man in suit.

We had all decided that those were the images we would continue to develop.

 

Later on, in the week in our group chat, things had changed. The group were discussing once again which images they wanted to do and Naomi had mentioned that she was now doing the snake and devil woman also which was originally what I was meant to be developing. As she and Rosie hadn’t made a lot of imagery and had not included finished images towards the manifesto posters I decided not to argue the decision as I believed she wanted more of an input in this final outcome.

 

Changing Groups

Towards the end of this task, I had felt a little down on how little the communication was as things would be sent last minuet and I would not receive any suggestions for ideas or opinions. It seemed very one sided. Although, Anna was very good at sending work beforehand and being in touch and I really appreciated her in the group. I had emailed my lecturer to ask for advice on how I could resolve this problem and to my surprise I was moved to another group. At this point I had stopped creating work for “Hands Off” and had moved my focus to my new group. It was unfortunate moving as I was extremely passionate about the subject of groping and the majority of ideas were made by me, but I was happy to start fresh with a new subject and new group.

Collaborate – Final Manifesto Poster (groping)

After creating some sketches, I decided to develop them slightly and sketch them again. I also made the sketches to replicate how it would look as a poster by adding room for the text and logo. In order for me to understand its layout clearly, I sketched out the where the columns would be, location of text and logo for each of the designs.

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From my sketches, I knew from the start that I would like to use photography to depict them. I felt as though the images of the dolls and jeans would look better by seeing their textures and painting or drawing them would look quite flat. I intended on having it more realistic as it will be easily recognisable to audiences. I had chosen the doll for the final image as I found it would be a more interesting visual than the jeans. The doll also connects better to the “not your toy” slogan and so I’d have the option of using it if needed. It would also visually connect with Anna’s poster if she decided to use the digital doll imagery in her poster.

 

I had borrowed some real dolls from a friend to use as my models and placed them onto a white piece of paper in order to create a white background.

 

I edited the white background on Photoshop and cut out the white in order to create a background of my own. I went with a bright blue colour for the background as the handprint in the logo is pink and I wanted it to stand out more. I also believed that having a blue background would balance out the image of the female doll as I want to make both genders feel included. It was also important to me to include a variation of race as anyone can be a victim of groping, therefore, I included a black and Asian doll. Although it is less likely for this to happen, there are multiple hands groping the doll as I wanted to convey the intrusion of the body and how uncomfortable it is. It makes the victim look surrounded and unsafe. I placed the manifesto on the dolls back in order to replicate a print that could be on the doll like a trademark print.

 

Final result

Presentation

I was assigned to create the manifesto presentation for the class. I had not received any research or text design from Holly and so that slide was left blank but I had included everyone else work on their own slides. I did this so they would be able to talk about their own creations on the day. I had also written something on each slide so they have something to fall back on when presenting.

Here is the presentation: Manifesto PowerPoint

Rosie and Naomi had only created illustrations and had not made their one posters therefore, the only other poster on the powerpoint was made by Anna.

Collaborate – Idea Generation (groping)

I was assigned to write the final manifesto as the group knew I have an ALevel in English Literature. This was the first section of work I completed for our presentation as it needed to be done quickly for me to give to the rest of the group. I began by looking at what had already been written in our draft. I wanted to use it as much as possible in order to ensure the group would agree with what was written. In our briefing for our manifesto presentations our lecturer mentioned that it did not have to be in the form of a poster and that it didn’t have to be written exactly the same as the guidelines they gave to us. Therefore, I added some sentences to make it sound less robotic and similar to every other groups manifesto.

The final manifesto:

 

This is the Manifesto of “Hands Off”

The time has come for a reappraisal of groping

We the undersigned have had enough of being touched non-consensually by others

Thousands of men and women are groped daily across the globe and we believe that this issue needs to come to an end

Our vision of the world would be better if everyone respected the personal boundaries of others and helped those in need when an incidence occurs.

It is our mission to empower the community to take control of their bodily rights and help those who appear to be in a vulnerable situation.

It’s alright to ask if they’re okay.

It’s fine to tell someone to stop.

But this needs to start today.

We will do this through our designs and illustrations by creating awareness for those

who are too afraid to stand up for themselves and others.

 

As our lecturers suggested that it wasn’t necessary to create a poster and that we could display out manifesto in any form we wish, I had suggested that we print them onto the back of t-shirts. My idea was to have the manifesto on our t-shirts and turn our backs to the audience in order to convey the message that we were turning our backs on groping. Although my group liked the idea, unfortunately, my group wasn’t happy to invest money into the work and so we decided to create a poster after all.

Colouring

 As a group, we had already discussed some colours that we wanted to possibly use throughout our process. Those colours were pink, blue and yellow, green, black and white. We chose these colours as they are very bright and stand out. We also wanted to direct our colours to a younger audience as they are more unaware and victims of groping. The blue was to apply to boys, the pink was to apply to girls and the green and yellow was to apply to both genders. I had suggested to the group that it would be a good idea to create some colour palettes in order to get a better understanding of the colour groups and how they’d mix together. I created these palettes myself and had shown them to the group to ask them to vote on their favourites.

 

We all ended up agreeing that pink, blue, yellow and black was the best palette to follow. I was glad that I had made them as we now had a way of following similar visuals in order to appear consistent through our work.

 

Typeface

For the typeface, we had already established that we wanted it to be very bold in order to appear clear and eye-catching to the audience. We also wanted it to match the fun colours we had selected already. I suggested that a sans serif typeface would be best to match our modern looking visuals and young audience. I began by making a list of different typefaces which fell under the categories we had discussed; bold, sans serif, fun design. Almost everyone in the group had agreed and told me that they preferred “PT Sans Narrow” (in bold) out of the rest as it applied to what we initially visualised.

Logo Design

The image for our logo I had in mind quite early on in the process. I had always visualised a hand or handprint therefore, I began sketching it out. I believed that having a handprint as our image would be an obvious visual for groping. It clearly represents the subject and conveys the message appropriately. When I had suggested it to the group they really liked the idea and as there were no other suggestions we went with it. It was an image that I knew we could continue to use in different aspects of our protest as it encompasses groping perfectly. I didn’t just want our logo to be an image, I believed it was important to combine it with our name. As the name is ‘Hands Off’ the image of the handprint would be a perfect play on the word ‘Hand’. I sketched my design and then created a digital form to use in all of our work.

(credit to Anna for creating the digital image of the handprint)

 

Sketches

Already having ideas for visuals to use in our manifesto poster, I created some sketches of the dolls and the body parts. For the body parts I wanted to focus more on the bottom as it applies to both genders. I believed that using jeans as the clothing would creating a more interesting texture and I would also be able to use the pockets for some ideas. I had an idea that maybe having some text on the back pockets would be an interesting visual as it can look like it is a design on the jeans already. Through my sketches I tried out different slogans to use and whether they could be stitched, painted or drawn on the pockets. As for the hands, I wanted to try different images of the doll being groped by other dolls. They could be seen groping the front, back or many hands closing in on them. I mostly had photography in mind when visualising these images.

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Digital images

 Anna had created digital versions of the doll and we had both agreed that it needed some sort of decoration in order to bring the colour palette into the image. I took it upon myself to create some digital flowers for her to surround the doll with along with a banner to place one of our slogans on. She really liked the designs and we both combined our work together. I had made the flowers on adobe illustrator by outlining photographic images of flowers I found on Goolgle. I then added colour making sure to follow the same selection of colours we had decided previously. I also made the banner on illustrator by creating a basic shape. I wanted it to have a paper-like texture and so I used tools on Photoshop to achieve this. We were both happy with the final product and I had given her the image in order for her to have the option of using it for her poster.

(Credit to Anna for creating the digital doll)

Collaborate – Idea Generation (groping)

After the group agreed to select my idea, we began by discussing our strengths. I had explained that I was stronger at generating ideas and creating visuals through design, photography or art. Anna explained that she was better at design and text, Rosie and Naomi were better at creating illustrations and Holly was better at textual design. After discussing we established that our group should be able to distribute work evenly as we all had different strengths. I was also made to be team leader as they believed I had the most ideas. I was happy to take on the role as I am so passionate about our protest’s subject but I made it clear that I had no intention of becoming a dictator as I wanted everyone to have a say and bring froth their own suggestions.

 

To begin our generation, we began to create a draft of our manifesto. We noted down the general message we wanted to convey with our audience. This included:

 

• General awareness
• Speaking out
• It’s okay to say no/stop
• Helping others in need (when being groped)
• To be cautious of the intentions of others
• Respecting others personal space
• To try and confront the groper (safely)

 

Here is our first draft:

 

Protest Name

 It was also important to choose a name for our protest. We brainstormed a few ideas and listed them. We ensured that most of our ideas included some form of suggestion of groping in order for it to give off a clear and instant message to any viewer. Some of the ideas we selected were:

• ‘My Body!’
• ‘Don’t Touch’
• ‘Not Yours’
• ‘Hands to yourselves’
• ‘Hands off’

As soon as I had suggested the name ‘Hands Off’ it sounded right to myself and the group. It was short, simple and clear. It works as a message as it is and is easily connected to groping. It suggests what we want as a group (for people to keep their hands to themselves). Therefore, we chose to take it further as our main protest name. The other suggestions we kept in order to possibly use later in our process.

 

Slogans

 Knowing that we would need text for future work, we chose a few slogans. Many of them were from our protest name brainstorm therefore it didn’t take us long to have a handful ready to experiment with. One of the suggestions was “My body, My Rights” which sounded excellent at the time but after I researched into it further I found out that it was an existing campaign against sexual harassment. I had suggested to add “Not your Toy” as a slogan as I already had some visual ideas in mind that I had previously discussed with the group. I had visualised using dolls to express our protest as it can be a metaphor of how men and women feel objectified by those that grope them. The group really liked my idea and we decided to make it one of our main slogans throughout our work.

Visuals

 As I have already mentioned, I had visual ideas in mind right from the start of the project. It was important to us that we were inclusive of both genders and I kept this in mind while generating the ideas. The first idea I had explained to the group was to have the most groped sections of the body such as breasts, bottom and crotch as the images. The sections would be clothed but would have some sort of message on the clothing. I liked this idea as it would convey a clear visual for the audience which they can easily connect to groping. The second idea I had was to use dolls as our images in order to represent the objectification of men and women when groped. I believe this was my strongest idea out of the two as it had a meaningful slogan to connect it with and a visual backed with context.

 

Distributing the work for our first presentation

 Our first task in this project was to create a poster for our manifesto and so we all decided that we should distribute different sections of the work out fairly in order to avoid any confusion. I was in charge of creating the presentation for the whole group, writing the manifesto and bringing everyone’s ideas together to lay out the final poster. Anna’s job was to make some digital visuals of the dolls and create a poster, Rosie and Naomi were to create illustrations of the body and dolls, and Holly was to design the text and do the research (to inform the presentation’s viewers of our subject). Everyone was happy with their roles as each of them had selected them themselves. This was important to me as I wanted to make sure that everyone would be comfortable with the workload and that they’d feel confident in their process.

Collaborate – Research (groping)

Our idea brainstorm was rather quick as not many suggestions were made. when our lecturers briefed us, I immediately knew that I would like to do a protest on, supporting the LGBTQ community or the awareness of groping. As a group of females, my suggestion of groping was instantly selected from my peers as it is a topic we are all too familiar with. I was happy that we were able to go ahead with my idea as it is something I am extremely passionate about and have always been able to discuss confidently with others. It is such a large issue that I personally don’t know anyone who hasn’t been groped once in their life. It is a subject that many are aware of but forget to discuss.

In order to understand the scale of how popular groping is I began to do some research. By searching on ‘Google’, not many usable results appeared. This supports my claim that it isn’t something that is discussed enough in our community. Although I found more information regarding sexual harassment (which groping comes under). Through my statistics research, I did find that on an online survey launched in early 2018 by ‘Stop Street Harassment’ found that that 81% of women and 43% of men had experienced a form of sexual harassment in their life.

(image from: https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/02/21/587671849/a-new-survey-finds-eighty-percent-of-women-have-experienced-sexual-harassment?t=1549549019216)

As you can see in the graph above, 51% of women and 17% of men have experienced groping in their lifetime. Although the gap between men and women is significantly large, I still believe that our protest should be directed to both genders in order to be inclusive of the two. The article also states that 66% of women have been sexually harassed in public and 38% have experienced harassment in the work place. It’s outstanding how large these percentages are, and many people find that negative after-effects follow its victims.

(image from: https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/02/21/587671849/a-new-survey-finds-eighty-percent-of-women-have-experienced-sexual-harassment?t=1549549019216)

 

It is surprising to see how many after-effects there actually are, and also how many decide not to confront the person but have to change important things in their lives such as jobs and daily routines in order to help them overcome it. I personally believe people decide not to confront the person as they are too afraid of the person, of not having evidence or a person to support them with their accusation. I have personally experienced groping in many clubs along with my friends, but I have yet to confront a groper due to some of the reasons I had just explained.

I have also found through research how young the victims of sexual harassment can be. It was clear that the most popular age group is between 14 to 17 years old. I believe this is because of the fact that women and men go through puberty during this time and their body transforms too seem more “womanly”/ “manly”. Also, they are young enough to be too afraid to mention anything to anyone about their experience and some may not even understand what qualifies as harassment. The second most popular age was between 11 to 13 years old which is even more shocking, but again I believe they are preyed upon due to the same reasons.

Throughout the research I have done, I have not found any articles or information regarding steps to tackle groping. I hope that through our protest we are able to create steps of our own of how to approach the issue properly.

Collaborate – Idea Development 2 (posters)

Due to the fact Georgia and I were making posters for the same series we had to ensure they were exactly the same in likeness. We had already established our imagery and colour scheme, Will had already designed the name tag for the campaign and we had decided on a slogan. But it was now time to decide how we’d bring all of these elements together.

To start, we knew that we wanted to add our loading symbol logo to the poster in some way other than in the name tag. We had two ideas that we could possibly use. One, was to place the loading symbol right in the centre of the poster in order to create a simulation of the picture buffering. The second idea was to create a hole in an area on the model’s body and place a loading symbol within the gap in order to represent waiting for an organ. Both ideas were very similar and neither of us could decide which would look the best within our images. I took it upon myself to create a quick sketch and collage of the two in order for us both to get a better understanding of what the designs would look like.

First Design:

 

Second Design:

 

After analysing them both, we came to realise that the second design was the best as the first design covered the image too much and made the overall message unclear. We also liked the second design’s subtleness and simplicity.

 

Collaborate – Idea Generation and Development

For the idea generation, we began jotting down ideas by creating a large mind map. We used this method to ensure full understanding from all of us when moving on to creating our work later on.

We made sure to discuss the key elements of the campaign such as the name, colour scheme, imagery, logo and slogan.

 

As we had discovered through our research, transplant waiting lists are a major problem for anyone associated with organ donation. It’s something that isn’t discussed enough in our community and we wanted to create a voice for those people on that list therefore, we decided to focus on this in our campaign.

 

Imagery – For the imagery, I put forward the idea that we should capture moments of everyday life where a person would be waiting, such as on a bus stop, train station, queues and on a phone. I came up with this as I knew they were situations any individual can relate to. Everyone knows the frustration of waiting on hold when calling customer service or waiting for their train. It connects the viewer with the patients as you make them come to the realisation that these people are waiting every day for a transplant and how small the viewers problems seem to theirs. The rest of my group liked the idea and we put this forward to our lecturer David and even discussed it with our fellow student from third year (who has experience with organ donation). Both were really happy with the concept and believed it would be a simple but effective message. I also suggested that using photography would probably be the best method to convey to images as they feel more personal and life-like. Photography should feel like a captured moment in time and I knew that’s exactly what viewers needed to see.

 

Logo – After establishing that ‘waiting’ would be our main theme, we decided that the loading symbol seen on online would be an effective logo to represent our campaign. It’s a worldwide image that anyone can understand. After looking online, there were a few options of what it could potentially look like. We ended up choosing the dotted version of the symbol as I suggested it could represent the individuals in need of a transplant and how their journey is a cycle of waiting.

(Reference of website:  https://www.shutterstock.com/image-vector/isolated-loading-icon-set-on-black-746425555?src=9xlPay4HgbOkP7KbBSixuQ-1-4)

This logo was included in our campaign name, TV advert and posters. We wanted it to appear as frequently as possible in order to make it memorable and stand out throughout all of the advertisement.

 

Campaign Name – Making a decision for the title was one of the most difficult parts of the creating process. We all went back and forth with suggestions but we wanted to try our best to include the letter “O” in the name because we were hoping to replace it with the image of our logo. This would have made it look more eye-catching and ensured the logo would be seen throughout the campaign. As you can see on our mind map, we came up with a few potential ideas but then I mentioned “SecondLife”. It had a certain ring to it and it included an “O” and so the group liked the idea but it didn’t quite represent our campaign well enough. So instead I mentioned changing the word “second” to “another” instead as it was similar but changed its meaning slightly to something more suitable. “AnotherLife” is the name we chose in the end as even our lecturer and interviewee were happy with it. I believe we liked this particular name the best as it describes the process perfectly in our eyes. We wanted to make sure it sounded positive and that viewers could easily connect it with organ donation.

 

Slogan –  The slogan came to us quicker than we expected compared to our campaign name. It was an obvious thing to us to try and make our slogan rhyme somehow as they are usually the most memorable. We definitely wanted to include the word “donate” as it describes the campaign simply and is immediately recognised to associate with blood/organ donation. The slogan “DON’T WAIT, DONATE” was one of the first we came up with and stuck with us the most and it had a better tempo and sound than the rest. It was short, simple and memorable and that is why we came to realise that it was our best option for the campaign. It was decided that we would include it throughout in the TV advert and posters in order to convey our leading message which is to donate.

 

Colour scheme – As seen throughout our research of campaign posters, many of them used minimal colour, around three in total. It was clear that this is something we should follow within our designs therefore, we tested a few colour palettes out. We all decided that red would be a colour that should appear in every piece as we all agreed it was the colour that represented organs the most.

The first colour palette I made was to represent the body. I went for warm skin colours such as creams and light browns and then I added the red to represent the blood and the blue was for the veins. I believed this palette gave a more life-like feel and created a more personal effect.

The second palette consists of black, white and grey, along with the essential red. The black, white and grey would give a clean colour scheme making the designs simple and modern. It also gave the lime light to red as it would stand out more and seem eye-catching.

 

I mixed the two palettes together to see how they would look by including the blue but I believed doing this would take away from the main colour (red). If the blue was to be incorporated I believed it should be very minimal to not over power the others. It also felt quite clinical which seemed too drab and depressing.

 

In the end, we decided that we all preferred the second colour palette as we liked its modern look and we believed this would be the most effective with the type of imagery we were creating.

 

Assigning the work

 

Posters

Georgia, Will and I decided to take on the posters and we already had ideas for their designs. Georgia and I chose to create two photography posters each which were from the same series and Will decided to create his own series of graphic posters. We all agreed to keep to the same colour schemes in order to ensure they looked as though they were from the same campaign. Georgia and I also tried to make our posters more modern and simple as they would complement Will’s graphic posters better. As discussed Georgia and I both took pictures of family and friends in situations where an individual would wait. She took on the train station and traffic and I took on the bus stop and phone call. Will’s posters purpose was to display facts about our campaign.

 

TV advertisement

James was assigned the TV advertisement as he felt the most confident in video editing. We had all decided together that the shots from the advert should match the images on mine and Georgia’s posters and therefore, we made sure to video the scenes on the same day we took the images. We did this in order to keep a connection throughout our work.

 

Banner and Instagram advert

Jack was assigned to create the banner and Instagram advert as he mentioned he was fully confident in creating them. The rest of us had explained our plans of imagery and design to him as he was absent during our idea generation and development. After, he seemed confident that he understood our vision and took on the task.

Collaborate – Research

In order for us to establish an idea and purpose for our campaign, we had to discuss what campaigns (that already exist) we were familiar with and which of those we supported. We did this to give us an idea of what types of campaigns we were interested in and that we could ensure that we were passionate about their messages. The few that we came up with were euthanasia, the ivory trade and organ donation. These we all agreed were big issues that we would love to represent in our work as they had messages that many would understand and support.

 

Existing campaign posters analysis

Each of us moved on to begin researching these campaigns online, searching for images and videos of existing advertisement in order to spark some inspiration.

These are a few that we liked:

Euthanasia poster

(Reference to website: Dignitas-Roses-Awards)

This poster caught our eye as it has a very simple but bold design. Using colours such as red black and white gives it a clean and modern look which stands out. The clever use of imagery was something we were interested in using as it gives the poster an edge. It shows us one thing but then means another. In this instance, we’re shown a fuel level and computer game’s character life level. Both aren’t linked to euthanasia but as they both intend on representing “near death”/ “emptiness” they fully encompass the meaning of the campaign.

 

Organ Donation

(Reference to website: http://www.studentshow.com/gallery/49400611/AIDO-organ-donation-campaign)

The design of this poster is again very simple using minimal colour, text and images. Many posters seen online for organ donation used similar imagery of “missing pieces”, playing on the idea that there is something that needs to be fixed. I believe this is popular within this particular campaign as is represents the message clearly due to the fact that it is easy to analyse and understand. Using a person in the image is also effective as it makes the poster more personal and less hash and digital.

 

The Ivory Trade

Reference to website: https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/467037423835723573/?lp=true)

This particular poster relies on its graphic design as it doesn’t really display an image of an elephant, it only implies it by using the main features of the animal such as its wrinkled trunk and tusks. Its clever use of the tusks to create a large “X” symbol in order to display its visual message. This again is a very simple poster using only a few colours and minimal text.

 

In all of the posters we saw some key design factors were repeated throughout the different campaigns. One, was the lack of colour, most of the posters only included around three colours and the most popular were red, white and black. Second, was a title that runs throughout. In order to connect a multitude of posters for the same campaign, designers would use the same title. Third, a slogan/tagline would be included, this again was to create an indicator of which campaign it belonged to and also an easily legible message. Four, the design as a whole is simple using minimal images and keeping the visuals easy for viewers.

 

Facts and information

In order to make our final decision, we researched facts online about each campaign to get a better understanding of their purposes and goals. It was also a way for us to see how much information was available for us to include in our work. After some time scanning the internet, we came to the conclusion that Organ Donation had the most useful information available to us and so we decided that this social issue would be the main focus of our campaign. As a group, we were happy with this as we understood Organ Donation more than the others and therefore, we could put our best efforts into our work.

Moving forward, we began to create a list of the most interesting facts we could find online about the issues surrounding organ donation.

Our list of facts:

 

• 1 person every 10 minuets are added to the organ donation waiting list

 

• An average of 20 people dies every day due to not having found the appropriate organ

 

• 6168 people are waiting for a transplant in the UK

 

• 70% haven’t joined the organ donation list yet, 4% don’t believe in it

 

• In 2011/2012 125 families over ruled the wishes of someone on the organ donation register

 

• 3000 new patients added to the waiting list each month are waiting for kidney transplants alone (USA)

 

• As many as 50 people can be helped by the donation of one person

 

• Less than 1% of people that died last year (2017) became organ donors

 

Through research, we came to realise the unfortunate length of time patients are required to wait for an organ and that the waiting lists made are far too long for some that it causes death. This is something we were interested in using for our campaign as it wasn’t displayed enough in the posters and advertisement we had seen online.

 

Interviewing an Organ Donation patient

We were lucky enough to find out that a fellow student on our course is a person in need of an organ and is too familiar with its waiting list. It was important to us that we discuss his experience with the system of organ donation as we could get first-hand information and opinions. He told us that the waiting list is something that isn’t discussed enough and how it is a major issue to patients. He also explained how even with people becoming donors in recent years it isn’t enough. Doctors are very specific with their decisions on whether an organ is okay to use, as our interviewee explained, people must be brain dead in order for doctors to consider taking their organs. The information we received from him was extremely helpful and gave us a greater understanding of the donation system. For this we are very grateful for is help and for opening up to us about his personal experiences.