How to communicate a story effectively to maximise understanding and to ensure effective evaluation and implementation?
Lecture analysis
Making an evaluation film and reflecting on your work is an essential part of design. It is a reflection on the project outcome and success in engaging with consumers, community or in changing public opinion.
From watching Landor’s video about their waste and relying project in New York, I felt it was a clear, engaging and informative explanation of their design and its impact.
They used a combination of text, music, video footage and animation to create a really clear and interesting video. They looked at what the issue was, how the researched it, what they designed and how they came to that design as well as how its worked and impacted the community. I think this is a good formula for my video this week and I will try to stick to this as much as possible.
Global Design Practises
Due to globalisation, many brands now need to reach a global audience. Bigger design agencies have launched and evolved to meet these global needs.
Smaller design studios have joined together to create large companies with multiple specialities and expertise. There are now so many different digital trends that design studios are expected to be able to use.
The merging of companies simplify the client and studio relationship, as they can have all their needs fulfilled in one place. It also allows companies to have an international reach with offices around the world.
Companies like this can work with the largest and most exciting brands that need to create big projects that span the globe. Bringing multiple expertise together within one design agency creates a more streamlined service, where design is holistic and easy to navigate.
If used well, these large design agencies could create real and powerful change in the world for good.
When bringing two companies with different expertise together, you can end up with a really powerful combination such as with Wunderman Thompson. Bringing data and tech insight into creativity it allows the company to look at the world differently. They combine expert data collection, analysis and consumer with a strong history of story telling and creativity.
Grant Hunter, excessive creative director of Iris Worldwide, tells of how from offices in London the company expanded worldwide. After taking on a big client they grew to ensure they could market the clients products successfully in the countries needed.
Living somewhere, coming to understand the culture and speak to local experts is so important to ensure they are presenting the product correctly. Each place looks at media differently, has a different humour and traditions and a global company needs to understand that.
What sparks emotion and feels relatable is different in different localities so to ensure design and campaigns are effective, this needs to be taken seriously.
They try to use universal themes in their campaigns and then evolve them to fit each locality.
When designing the London 2012 olympics avatars they bought together tradition and new technologies. They spoke with experts and ran focus groups with kids as the Olympics aimed to get more kids into sport.
Dumb Ways to Die – Case Study
Dumb Ways to Die was a song and video designed to make people act safer while around trains. The did this using humour, instagram friendly content and child friendly video games to engage people with the rail safety message.
John Mescall McCann did this by making it simple and funny.
He also says: “Technologies greatest gift is it makes us more human, if we use it correctly – because it allows us to share things that make us feel more human.” Which I think is an interesting point, but said in 2016. I wonder if asked again now he would have the same opinion.
He goes on to say that you need to sue humanistic thinking before then going to technology to spread the word. People have to fall in love with the thing first, before technology can be powerful in letting them share the thing they love.
He believes in work that has a real impact and inspired people to change their behaviours, even if only in the tiniest way.
Workshop Challenge
For my video this week, I wanted to try and make it as engaging as Landor’s one. So I tried to stick to similar ideas of presentation.
Because of the short timescale and limited resources I decided to try and create as much video content myself as I could, but bulk this out with stock videos. If I had been able to set this project up in reality and got the community to create air pollution art, all the footage would be created specifically for this project.
I started by noting down some videos I wanted to create or shoot:
- traffic videos
- Timelapse of traffic – low down?
- Close up of ink painting
- Close up of pens and drawing
- Cyclists and walkers
- Stock video of graffiti or large scale art?
- look at stats and show them somehow? Simple animation?
- Moth flying animation?
I then looked at what I wanted to show in the video:
Why – air pollution issues stats etc video of cars, why people should care
What– I want to empower, educate and inspire the community to change how they act
Design research– speaking to locals about bike safety? Maybe not so relevant now.
Outcome – art project, website, groups etc. show as much as possible
Impact– hard to show, but talk about potential problems and impact.
I looked at other design outcome videos to work out what I felt was effective and engaging. I think a voice over combined with music kept the video engaging and easy to understand.
I also thought videos that used bold and simple animation were really powerful, however I think my skill level with animation would make a video like this take forever and isn’t practical in this instance.
I wrote myself a script to base my video off and give me a stricture that I could then add video content into:
“Air pollution in Bristol is at a dangerous level. The poor air quality in the city causes over 300 deaths a year, and just breathing in the air is the same as smoking 1.5 cigarettes every day. But you would never know. It is a silent and invisible health emergency.
In Bristol the worst source of air pollution is nitrogen dioxide, which mostly comes from traffic. The dirty air damages the health of our children, communities, economy and planet. It can cause: Asthma, impaired lung function, premature heart disease and cancer. Low birth weight, premature birth and stunted lung growth. Whats more, the air pollution is damaging the planet, contributing to climate change, affecting tree growth and contributing to biodiversity loss. Bristol’s air pollution levels are illegal and have been for over twenty years.
However, during covid-19 lockdown, air pollution is Bristol dipped back down to safe levels. With less cars on the road the air became the cleanest its been in years. This change really highlights the impact that us as a community in Bristol can have on the quality of the air we breathe. Highlighting the effect we have on the air we breathe
And that inspired me…
What if we could join together as a community to solve this problem? To make air pollution visible to the community and to give them the tools to change the way they move around the city, choosing to leave their car at home and hop on a bike, walk or take public transport.
That is where the Peppered Moth Collective was born. The Peppered Moth evolved to adapt to the air pollution in cities by changing colour, and now as a community we also need to adapt to get control of our air. Starting by engaging and educating the community through creativity.
We got schools and local artists to create powerful artworks using black ink that is made from the air pollution in Bristols air. Each artist got a specific amount of ink, related to how polluted the air in their area is.
These powerful artworks were then displayed around the city. Hung from bridges, on the side of buildings and within cafes and restaurants. A live data map of Bristol’s air quality is constantly updated with collaborative data, as residents move around the city with small air pollution monitors clipped onto their bags.
A collaboration space is also created where residents can share knowledge, ideas and work together on self initiated projects.A collection of walks is available for all abilities, including one that takes you to visit the Air Pollution Art that has been exhibited around the city.
Community groups and workshops are run to help support people in living in a way that is better for the air quality, such as bike courses and fitness classes.Bikes can be donated and resold or given to people who can’t afford them. The Peppered Moth Collective makes the silent and invisible problem of air pollution visible and tangible. It empowers the community to take the issue of air pollution into their own hands. With knowledge, awareness and the tools to make changes, the community themselves can make a real difference.
With this project momentum is key, so the challenge will be keeping it going with regular community engagement and allowing the community themselves to shape and expand the project to fit them. The potential social impact of this project could be massive. It could be carried on indefinitely. it is a space for collaboration where the community can continue to work together on issues that affect them.”
The script ended up being a bit long, so I edited parts out that didn’t seem so necessary to ensure the video didn’t get too long.
I created a simple animation of my moth logo to give the impression of it flying across the screen. I also created some text animations to be overlaid on my video where the text looked as if its breathing. I hoped these simple additions would add a powerful but not overwhelming weight to the message I was trying to portray.
I went out into Bristol to video traffic and cyclists, as well as creating some video of me painting and drawing with black ink.
I used a wide range of people in my video, to try and add a personal edge and allow people to feel emotional connected to the issue. I also wanted to show the diversity of people and ages that could get involved with the collective. As a community project, inclusivity is key.
I started off the video with the issues and then aimed to create a change of mood in the video as I moved onto the positive solution.
After multiple edits I created my final video:
Reflection
As the world becomes more globalised, design studios who want to work with the biggest brands need to change how they work. Bigger more diverse teams must be created to fulfil all the clients demands, while experts in each locality need to be involved to ensure local traditions, humour and interests are taken into account.
For my project this week, I wanted to create a video that showed the potential impact of my project, appealed to as many people as possible and offered a positive solution to an issue that affects everyone who lives in Bristol.
I used simple animation and breathing type on top of video footage to try and show my project as clearly as possible and with impact. I included real people to make the video relatable and a consistent voice-over to keep viewers engaged and clearly explain the issue and solution.
Without having been able to make my idea a reality, it was hard to show what impact the project has on the community. I speculated about the potential impact of a project like this, which I believe to be large, but I would like to have been able to use real members of the community giving feedback on how they believe the project has worked. As a project that is so community centred, including that same community in the video would have been very powerful and made the project much more relatable.
However, on the whole I am happy with the outcome of this project. I think The Peppered Moth Collective would inspire and empower the community, many of whom are already worried about air pollution, to make a real and lasting difference to the area in which they live. Climate change and environmental issues are huge problems. Many people care deeply about the issues but find it hard to feel as if they are able to make any perceivable change themselves. Focusing just on the problem of air pollution, this project gives individuals an opportunity to do something, and actually see the benefits of it. Lockdown proved to us it was possible. The hope is that this empowerment will keep momentum and breed enthusiasm for further sustainable, community lead projects around the city.
Lizzie Wa Design 
Leave a comment