Lizzie Wa Design

Lecture Notes

How do you research and identify new industry projects or opportunities that you would like to participate in?

Torste Posselt – FELD – Personal preference is important when choosing a project. But is also interesting to choose something you have no connection to sometimes. Explore a new area, you get to learn and discover new things. 

Wouter Dirks – Studio Dumbar – Research and seeing how people respond to your proposal 

Luke Veerman – Finding a problem you want to solve or an industry you are interested in. 

Lecture Reflection

The designers spoken to in our lecture this week frequently mentioned choosing a project to take forwards based on your interest and personal preference. Torste Posselt said however, that sometimes its also interesting to choose a project that you have no connection to as it is a great opportunity to expand your practise, learn and grow. I think I will be open to this idea when choosing a brief this week and consider all the briefs equally, despite being naturally drawn to one or two or them. 

Project questions 

To begin with I looked at all briefs and wrote down some notes about my initial thoughts around each. 

Creative conscious – this is brief is the one I am drawn to right away. My aim for my future practise is to work on projects that improve peoples quality fo life or that of the planet, so this brief fits in really well with that. I also have a strong connection to mental health, having struggled myself and recently worked for a year within a mental health charity, so this side of the brief calls out to me quite a lot. However, it is such a large and open ended brief that it feels a little intimidating and I will have to be disciplined in setting myself a strict question to answer within it if I hope to create something powerful. 

Adidas– I am initially not drawn to this project at all as I don’t resonate with Adidas as a brand and the commercialism of the company doesn’t sit too well with my future design practise aims. However, I think it would be interesting to look at a brand already in existence and create a campaign for them as this isn’t something I’ve done during my projects so far. I am interested in helping young girls to get into exercise for themselves and their wellbeing and healthy living rather than just thinking of sport as something they are forced to do at school. I want to try to make it something empowering not stressful or embarrassing, which it can be for many young girls who are struggling with changes to their body and to whom sports don’t come naturally. 

Collaboration – I haven’t really considered this brief as I don’t know of anyone I could collaborate with easily for this project and due to large amount of work commitments I worry I wouldn’t have time yo work with someone else successfully at the moment, 

Science museum- I think this brief sounds really interesting and I think making archives easy to access and fun could be an exciting project. I like the idea of making the archives less about searching and more about discovering. I think this project could be one that I start on with no idea of the end point and let it evolve over the 8 weeks, which sounds quite scary but also I think would be a very valuable experience, as up until now, I have always had an idea of a potential outcome when starting, even if it didn’t end up to be exactly the same at the end. 

After considering each brief and speaking with Ben in a tutorial, I decided to look a little deeper into two idea to see which one grabbed me more and I felt I had more to work with on. I wrote notes about my mental health project idea and the science museum brief.

I started to realise that my passion really lay with the mental health project idea and I wanted to see where I could take this idea. I am interested in exploring the theme of mental health, and trying to answer the section ‘How might your project help stop things in the world that are causing low levels of mental health?’ 

From my time working within a mental health charity, I think a big issue that is affecting peoples mental health is the lack of access to free and low cost support, or the lack of understanding of how to access the services available to people. My experience was that many services available to people were not utilised to their full potential and a lot of this was down to people not being aware of what was on offer. 

I think there could be a really powerful and important role that design could play in making the process of seeking mental health support feel less clinical, confusing and overwhelming and therefore making it easier and more likely for people to successfully find the right kind fo support that will improve their mental health and wellbeing. I need to make sure however, that I set myself a well thought out question to ensure my project is focused and can create something that will actually have the potential to create a positive impact on peoples lives. 

For my research this week I wanted to look at other projects that have tried to improve peoples mental health and likelihood of accessing support. I want to explore different approaches to this same aim, looking at both digital and physical outcomes, to see which parts I felt like were successful and what parts were not so successful. 

Made of Millions

https://www.madeofmillions.com/

Designed by people with mental health conditions, for the mental health community. The website focuses on providing accessible video content to those in need. It used art, media and digital technology to try and change how we perceive mental health. It is designed to be a digital hub for the mental health community and ensure it is accessible, stigma free and educational. (Ong 2020)

It has friendly, approachable and welcoming design to it. The website is simply laid out which I think is successful to ensure the viewer doesn’t become overwhelmed. Full of educational and easy to find videos, articles. It is great for educating people about mental health in a frank and open way. I think for this aim it is very successful, however, it doesn’t help with getting people further support. It offers links to support but there are a lot and it feels quite unstructured and overwhelming. I think the design feels to be aimed strongly at the younger generation. 

I think the poster covers used to show the videos available add some real interest to the site, but negatively affect if from a user-friendliness perspective. The style does make the website seems fun and lighthearted, making learning about mental health into something that seems almost fun and very removed from the clinical websites often associated with mental health. 

The Mind Map

https://themindmap.co.uk/ The Mind Map is a Liverpool-based innovative mental health hub that offers practical advice to help young people to get access to subsidised counselling and free mental health support services. It also features an online publication which shares the stories of musicians and athletes who have been affected by mental health problems in their lives and careers. (Baines 2019)

The design of this site is very clean and typography led. It is simple and doesn’t overwhelm the viewer. The website pushes the user into searching for counselling. The design of this is very clear and easy to navigate which is something I think is very important when navigating mental health support. This site is aimed at young people and that is very apparent in the design, that feels very current. The colour scheme feels calming, with big sections of soft colour surrounded by a lot of white space. All the white space makes a very relaxing experience for the user. 

I think the website however doesn’t have that much to offer other than pointing people towards a few therapists. It doesn’t give the user that much understanding of how they are feeling, but it is very easy to navigate and use which is important for someone struggling with their mental health. 

Talk to Me – Steuart Padwick 

https://www.steuartpadwick.co.uk/products/talk-to-me/

Two 5.5m sculptures to encourage Londoners to talk about mental health showing that through communication the weight so many of us carry can be reduced.

As visitors approached the breathing wooden sculptures, a sensor was triggered, and the figures voiced poignant and uplifting words. These conversations started to crack the ‘burden’ to release a glowing light. These words were written and recorded by notable poets, writers, actors and mental health ambassadors. (Padwick 2021)

The size and location of these sculptures makes them very attention grabbing and moving. I think this would be successful in  brining peoples attention to the issues surrounding mental health and starting conversations amongst people. However, the sculptures will only raise awareness of mental health and start conversations, which while important, doesn’t have a direct impact on helping people who are struggling with their mental health. 

Safe Innovations

Karl Lenton designs egg-shaped movable therapy pods for prisons

Another project I think is really interesting was created by Karl Lenton from Safe Innovations has designed these mobile therapy spaces to give prisoners better and more comfortable access to mental and physical healthcare. (Tucker 2015)

Reflection 

Choosing which project to take forwards for the next eight weeks has been quite difficult to do. I can imagine creating interesting projects for a number of the briefs, which makes it hard to commit to just one. I think in particular, the Science Museum project would have been very interesting to pursue. In the end however, I decided that taking the creative conscious brief forwards was the right thing to do. As I am lucky enough to be studying I am able to take this opportunity to create something that I would love to see in the world.

I feel very strongly about mental health and the importance of people being able to access support when they need it. I have also spent the past year working for a mental health charity so I have taken this opportunity to bring this passion and experience together in a project that really interests me. I think I need to be careful as this project progresses to not try and do too much and instead focus on a specific issue related to mental health.

Reference list

BAINES, Josh. 2019. “Just-Launched Publication the Mind Map Wants to Promote ‘a New Normal’ in Mental Health.” http://www.itsnicethat.com [online]. Available at: https://www.itsnicethat.com/news/the-mind-map-mental-health-awareness-publication-030719 [accessed 30 Oct 2021].

MADE OF MILLIONS. 2021. “Mental Health Advocacy & Education.” Made of Millions Foundation [online]. Available at: https://www.madeofmillions.com/ [accessed 30 Oct 2021].

ONG, Jyni. 2020. “The Newly Launched Made of Millions Provides a Digital Hub for the Mental Health Community.” http://www.itsnicethat.com [online]. Available at: https://www.itsnicethat.com/news/made-of-millions-provides-digital-190320 [accessed 30 Oct 2021].

PADWICK, Steuart. 2021. “Talk to Me.” Steuart Padwick [online]. Available at: https://www.steuartpadwick.co.uk/products/talk-to-me/ [accessed 30 Oct 2021].

THE MIND MAP. 2021. “The Mind Map | Navigating to Better Mental Health.” The Mind Map [online]. Available at: https://themindmap.co.uk/.

TUCKER, Emma. 2015. “Karl Lenton Designs Movable Therapy Pods for Prisons.” Dezeen [online]. Available at: https://www.dezeen.com/2015/09/29/karl-lenton-safe-innovations-seeds-movable-therapy-pods-prisons-uk-leeds/.