Wk 3.1 IND: 2x THUMBNAILS

Empathy / Ideate / Prototype

For my independent study I had to complete two spreads from our project brief. I chose to redo Issue and Desired Outcome. 

Because we had decided to change the audience to business women with depression, It changed my focus and view on the topic.I aimed to keep the "corporate" feel but without the masculinity so I stayed away from suits and ties.

ISSUE: Business workplaces are still masculine in that men generally earn more money and have higher roles than women. The message I wanted to portray was how women can feel small and insecure in this type of environment. 

DESIRED OUTCOME: Awareness, support, helping sufferers and their families, education, understanding. For this image I wanted to communicate Awareness, help and support.
Awareness and understanding is shown through the ribbon tattoo (it would be coloured green for depression but has to be black and white for this). Support is shown through the written tattoos saying "they need you" and "they love you". The cuts on the bottom of the arm start to disappear and fade as they get closer to the positives further up the arm. This is to show that this person has/is receiving help and its making a difference. 

Wk 3.1 STORY BOARDING CONCEPTS

Ideate / Prototype 

In class we started brainstorming and story boarding concepts for our visual brief. We planned and drew this thumbnail together. Our thumbnail consists of a business person suffering from major depression is sitting at the furthest end of the table while at the other end of the table on the left is their family trying to welcome him to dinner and handing him food etc, while on the right side is people from his workplace not noticing him and one even facing away from him. We wanted to communicate 'Audience' (business person suffering depression, family and work) with this imagery. The family wants to help the person suffering but don't know how while the workplace does not even notice the person has depression. This also communicates how distant they feel from others.

Planning and drawing this up in class helped us think more deeply about how we could show our ideas. 

Wk 3.1 BRAINSTORMING AND STORYTELLING

Ideate / Prototype / Test

We presented our first draft briefs on tables and the class worked their way around to look at everyone's briefs. The class got over all student feedback and we got tutor feedback as well as some tutor feedback.
Sayydah and I were discussing if we should narrow down our audience to either major depression in business women or men. 

We decided on taking our project towards major depression in women. We decided to narrow our audience to business women with major depression because we felt that women for more likely to open up about their issues than men -we found this based on our research:
Male Major Depression:

• Blame others
• Feel angry, irritated and ego inflated
• Feel suspicious and guarded 
• Create conflicts
• Feel restless
• Need to feel in control 
• Find it "weak" to admit self-doubt or despair
• Use alcohol, sex, and TV to self medicate
• Risky or reckless behavior

Female Major Depression:

• Blame themselves
• Feel sad, apathetic and worthless
• Feel anxious or scared
• Feel slowed down or nervous
• Have trouble setting boundaries
• Find it easy to talk about self-doubt and disappear
• Use food and friends to self medicate 

Wk 2.2 IND VISUAL BRIEF FIRST DRAFT

Empathy / Ideate /  Prototype / Test

For our Independent Study we completed our first Visual Brief Draft. This consisted of 8x A3 spreads.

This helped us understand the our subject more thoroughly. We created our own imagery and aimed not to be so literal with it. We want to communicate our message with emotive imagery and make the audience think about the problem rather than get told about it. 

Wk 3.1 LECTURE PHOTOGRAPHY IN DESIGN

Empathy 

We had a lecture lead by Jason about Photography. We learnt about what to look for when taking a good photograph. Jason made three steps very clear in his lecture:1. Composition2. Lighting (ISO)3. Aperture
We learnt a lot of important things about photography which we will keep in mind when we start producing our final imagery. 

Wk 2.2 EXCHANGE

MEETING MY EXCHANGE GROUP

EX-CHANGE / Test

I meet my ex-change group. They were from varied majors and their projects were all very different. We discussed our individual topics and everyone gave feedback.

Because my group partners in ex-change were from different majors, not all of them understood my VCD brief. However another VCD people are in my ex-change group and helped explain it more clearly. I asked my groups advice on my target audience. Should we do teen major depression or business person's major depression? They agreed on teen depression because they could relate to it more easily. This is something I'd have to discuss with Sayydah and see what her ex-change group's feedback was. 

Gin Sparrow

Wk 2.2 LISTENING AND SHARING

Empathy / Ideate 

Sayydah and I went over our research in detail and brainstormed our ideas. We then created a profile for a teenager with major depression and a business person with major depression. We documented their name, age, gender, ethnicity, occupation and a personal statement. Under the titles 'Major Depression: Teens' and 'Major Depression: Business People' we identified the 8 categories covered in the brief:

• Issue
• Background
• Audience(s)
• Audience's needs
• Clients/Stakeholders
• Client/Stakeholders motivation
• Desired action outcome
• Barriers

When Sayydah and I discussed different types of depression and how they affect different groups of people, we learnt we were interested in the two audiences: Teens with major depression and Business people with major depression. Creating the two profiles based on these helped us understand the possible target audiences further.
Covering the 8 categories in the brief also helped me understand the brief even further. 

PUT BRAINSTORM SCAN HERE

Gin Sparrow

Wk 2.1 COLLABORATION ON SHARED INTEREST

Empathy / Define / Ideate 

We went over the brief in more detail. We were introduced to the timeline, reflection blog and Exchange. In class we were were put into groups and had to pitch our researched key ideas. We were then put into different groups based on our finalized ideas. We pitched our ideas again to this new group. After were sorted into our project partners and worked together to produce an A3 sheet of our topic research with a statistic, image and statement. Our class discussed everyone's sheets to understand their ideas more fully. 

When we were first introduced to Exchange, I wasn't sure exactly what it was, how it will be organised and what we would get from it. After discussing it, I understand that its a good opportunity for people outside your major to help critique your process and ideas. Pitching our ideas to two different groups helped me articulate my ideas and also gave me important feedback. This was also achieved when the class discussed partner's A3 sheets. 

Wk 1.2: IND RESEARCHING THEMES AND AUDIENCES

OVEREATING AND DEPRESSION

Empathy 

For our independent study we had to research into themes of well-being. The areas of interest for me was Overeating and Depression. I produced an A4 summary page for each topic.

This research helped me understand the topics more thoroughly. It also made me more interested and curious in the topics when I found out more information. 

Gin Sparrow

Wk 1.2: LIFEHACK WORKSHOP

Empathy / Define 

By ourselves we had to come up with ideas and topics linked to well-being. Afterwards we were put into groups to discuss these ideas. Our class then put their main ideas on the whiteboard then the ideas were rearranged into categories. 

We discovered other ideas and topics linked to well-being that we hadn't thought of before. Discussing these ideas with a group of people also helped us understand the topics more. 

Gin Sparrow

Wk 1.1: DESIGN THINKING

LIFEHACK 

Empathy / Define

We were introduced to 'Design Thinking' and thinking about design in a global context. We were shown previous student examples from this brief in previous years and in other projects relating to this. Sam Rye spoke about Lifehack and defined 'everyday well-being'. We were split into groups within our class and made to respond to three questions: 

1. When do you feel well?

2. When did you or someone you know struggle with something?

3. What would you do differently next time?

We came away understanding what well-being is and learning about what Lifehack does. We learnt about what makes other people's well-being improve and what dampens or "ruins" their well-being. We also discovered what could be done next time to improve the situation from other people's perspectives. 

Gin Sparrow