Wrapping up...

What I liked:

I enjoyed the idea of finding creative ways of adjusting someones well being. There are lots of innovative ways to do this project that utilities peoples strengths.

What I disliked:

Working in a team can always be a struggle, but it's definitely a good challenge to face!

What I learned:

To utilize my strengths wherever i see fit!

Presentation

For our presentation, I like the idea of giving the audience something to hold that comes together to create a bigger piece. By doing this we are promoting our idea of coming together.

What I would like to do is draw a heart in the "wavy lines" style our dossier will have, and chop it up into several different pieces. Handing this out to the audience, the pieces have little value to each person. However, at the end of the presentation we'll show that when the pieces come together it makes a work of art -- collectively, coming together we can create a loving environment.

Slowly through the presentation the pieces will be coming together piece by piece.

For our assignment we have created a system:

It provides an opportunity for social interaction between cross disciplinary students at Massey University.

We will create an online publication/website will include interviews with students from varying disciplines explaining assignments they may be working on, stories they would like to share and more. This celebrates the creative community while highlighting skills and assets that each student may provide.
These students will also be hosting workshops on campus that the audience may want to partake in. By interviewing the students and putting them in our digital publication we are allowing the audience to be aware of who will be running this workshop and gain a better understanding of who/what may be at the event.

Then at the workshop itself we will live stream the event using periscope, an app which links up to twitter. The livestream video will be broadcast across Massey TV screens to show the students what the workshop is like before even arriving at the event.

Through broadcasting we are spreading awareness to any student watching a screen on Massey grounds. 

Students will also have the ability to tweet about the event to further explain what the workshop is like for participants. This also helps us (the organizers) to quickly understand what is good and bad about the event we have organised so we can adjust an downfalls before they get worse.

Dossier text

PAGE 1:
The feeling of isolation in crowds leads to lack of social interaction with peers causing loneliness and less social security.
This leads to a less healthy state of wellbeing as the 5 ways to wellbeing aren't being met

Page 2: Audience
Our assignment is aimed at socially shy Massey students from varying disciplines looking to seek further information on creative subjects, but lack the assertion to get it.

Through having students partake in surveys, we understood that people would be less willing to partake in social situations if they were alone or were unsure of what an event had to offer, preventing social interaction.

PAGE 3: HOW MIGHT WE?
How might we provide an opportunity to socialise with peers from cross creative disciplines on campus to create a stronger social support that creates an educational environment.

PAGE 4 & 5: OUR PLAN

This will be achieved through creating a system that provides an opportunity for social interaction between cross disciplinary students at Massey University.

We will create an online publication will include interviews with students from varying disciplines explaining assignments they may be working on, stories they would like to share and more. This celebrates the creative community while highlighting skills and assets that each student may provide.
These students will also be hosting workshops on campus that the audience may want to partake in. By interviewing the students and putting them in our digital publication we are allowing the audience to be aware of who will be running this workshop and gain a better understanding of who/what may be at the event.

Then at the workshop itself we will live stream the event using periscope, an app which links up to twitter. The livestream video will be broadcast across Massey TV screens to show the students what the workshop is like before even arriving at the event.

Through broadcasting we are spreading awareness to any student watching a screen on Massey grounds.

Students will also have the ability to tweet about the event to further explain what the workshop is like for participants. This also helps us (the organizers) to quickly understand what is good and bad about the event we have organised so we can adjust an downfalls before they get worse.

PAGE 6: JOURNEY MAP
Our audience will find out about events by first seeing the events broadcast on the TV's around Massey so they see for themselves what the event is and the environment of the event right away. Then updates such as tweets will appear on screen as another touchpoint that explains verbally what the event will be.
Finally using hashtags (#coca) and advertising our publication link, students will be able to go online and read our publication to gain a further understanding of what we, and other Massey students have to offer

PAGE 7 : THE 'DESIRED OUTCOME':
We are hoping to capture students attention with strong visual communication so that students will be enticed to read about what Massey has to offer.
The Massey environment is very creative and very educational, but the students aren't aware of this. Our aim is to make them aware and hopefully entice them to become apart of the creative community.


PAGE 8: 5 WAYS TO WELL BEING
Of the 5 ways to well being we mostly focussed on Connect, Be Active and Learn.
Connecting with those from other discplines provides the opportunity to learn and share your own skills with others.
Being active and having something to focus on/be a part of helps the mind work through challenges of social discomfort and lonliness.
Learning helps the audience gain knowledge from peers


PAGE 9: Macro and Micro trends

Macro: Changing habits & ideas 
We are changing our audiences habits and ideas by getting them out of a routine of less social interaction, and hopefully getting them into a routine that implements a healthier, educational surrounding without forcing any change. 

Micro: Communication and sharing of ideas
Teaching and learning lets the audience share information then get more back from peers. 

PAGE 10: HOW WILL THIS CONTINUE?

Once the first monthly cycle is done, we will hopefully have gained enough feedback from our audience to understand what workshops are successful and unsuccessful, and who would be willing to partake or potentially lead this.
This will be a student led service run by students, for students. This allows more feedback and less of a social hierarchy preventing any possible social isolation.

PAGE 11: PROCESS

Through interviews, journey mapping and surveys we managed to gain an understanding that students don't tend to read the Massey magazine "Massive" because it doesn't cater to what they want to read/learn about, and they only tend to pick up the magazine if it has a visually engaging cover. 
We wanted to create a publication that was made 'by students, for students', which includes informative interviews about each student, their interests and advice they have for interested students.  

26/8/16 (start of semester 2 / 2) Reflective Diary

Lydia has joined Rachel and my group.

Rachel and I quite liked the idea of doing a "Doggy Day" from the beginning of the semester, but after our research we realise this idea did not quite cater to the needs of the audience. 

Instead of addressing the issue, this idea is just getting people together in a park and the focal point becomes the dogs.

We also liked the idea of "Bubbled Thoughts", where someone lets a balloon fly away with the persons phone number so when it pops (hopefully) someone will call the number!
However, this may produce waste, and you aren't quite sure what kind of person you will end up meeting!  As well as all this, it once again doesn't address the issue, but rather skips straight to making friends -- we certainly want to provide an opportunity for the audience member, but we also want to make sure the issue of loneliness is made apparent and through this, the audience member can connect with others.


So far outr favorite idea is called "Me Too". Based on an actual idea that was created (source here: https://segd.org/“me-too”), this activity can allow the audience to both address the issue they're facing, and also get them to connect through this issue.
Being in central cities can feel lonely when you want someone to talk to but you can't.
However, if we put people in this position where they feel comfortable enough to share their experiences with those around them and connect through these.

A similar concept to Me Too is "PostSecret", where people anonymously send in a postcard with a secret on it (source here: http://www.postsecretcommunity.com/news-faq/postsecret-story).
Things can get very grim, but through anonymous messaging it gives the senders all the more freedom to share their secrets.

Cover for Publication

For this part of this assessment we are refining the style of our publication so that it's clear what we want to communicate.
Since our theme is Synaesthetic: the mixing of the senses, which relates to our intent to mix people of cross disciplines, I want to communicate two variations of something coming together.

I want to make sure this cover is bright enough that it will stop someone in their tracks and want to know what we have to offer.

Contrasting imagery like these continues our theme of connection, while being a different styled cover.

Ex-Change

After talking to my group, they suggested the publication catch the eye of the audience. Consider the environment around the publication, and around the screens which will be broadcasting our events.
We need to show whats going to come in the future, not present whats happened in the past.

Through this information, we will create a stimulating cover.

Interview for Publication

Remington Manning

What are you studying?
Bachelor of Fine Arts at Massey Univeristy

What’s the most exciting things about being a part of an exhibition?
Working with others and being forced to convsider howyour work functions within a group. The context can change within a group so you have to be careful

What was the most difficult part about having an exhibition?
I’d have to say responding to and dealing with unpredictablilty. My team mate got tonsillitis so the group had to hang up the work for her.
The exhibition may not be what you dreamed but you have to work with it.

How long did it take to get everything together?
9 weeks overall, but if it weren’t a part of uni it would have been 4 weeks.

What kinds of spaces are most affective for holding an exhibition?
It depends on the work. The space we used eas most cohesive due to the works relating to one another so well. There should be enough room for peoples works to be comfortably displayed without stepping on eachothers toes.

What advice do you have to offer first-time exhibitioners?
Definitely write a plan of exactly everything you want to do. I.e: the catalogue is a nice little momento that contributes to the exhibition, and makes it look more professional. Little things like that can make a big difference.

Remington Manning is a third year Fine Arts student at Massey University.
Although Fine Arts is commonly a very colourful place to be, Remington is heavily colourblind and cannot see colours such as pink, red and green. When certain colours such as these are placed side by side or on top of one another, he struggles to find any difference between the two.
However, this has not stopped him from continuing his passion of the arts. Remington just has his first exhibition at Massey where he displayed his work (___), a massive compilation of charcoal sketches taken from close ups of the human body and rearranged to make an abstract work.

Timeline

Week 9 (currently this week):

- have all info gathered that is needed from the community (bella will take down sheets of paper that people have written on around uni).
Questions will help us understand what people would be willing to participate in.
- have information collected together that will go in the publication: who will be there, what is our aim, who we are, what we're trying to create, etc... essentially explaining the assignment
- from all this information, refine to what will be used on the cup

Week 10: 'design stage'

- Have theme, layout and imagery sorted
- MUST come up with title for project and branding image.
- Design grid-layouts for publication
- Gather photos of people needed for profiles, and other imagery needed to create this
- Do a mockup of everything for user testing

Week 11: Refining

-After using testing and creating a theme we are now able to start finalising everything
- this stage will be the refining stage
- Spend the entire week working on the presentation of our assignment: does it communicate what is needs to?

Week 12: Hand in!

- Advert (cup cover)
- Publication
- Event Plan
- Rationale

Poster References

 This is a poster for a design conference. I appreciate the colour palette as well as having a large image in the top half with following information below -- font is rather small and laid out weird though.

 I thought this poster was clever and appreciated the more visual aspect behind this. The simplicity in the lay out is purely for aesthetic purposes. This would presumably have a follow up page with further information.

 A very fun poster, cute palette. The satire is more in the image, but the image does not neccesarily relate to the event theme.

 This image purely updares the viewer on the need to know information -- since it is a conference based more around a certain group of people they have limited the visual imagery and had more of an information-based poster.

 The contrast between the normal and inverted poster I thought was quite fun -- maybe laying out the poster as a split-in-two imagery and info landscape would be a different way of approaching this.
Since this is a 'creative' workshop we want to approach advertising in an eye-catching way.

Below are workshop posters.




 Simple, straight to it poster: title, who's speaking, date.

 This event is essentially what we're doing, so this is a good poster to reference. Creative often implies messy, i.e paint, spilled paint and pens etc.. so showing creativity would involve lots of colour and lots of movement.

Quite a nice layout, although rather 'blocky'. However it provides the 'need to know' information while providing icons/imagery that represent the important ideals this workshop will provide.

 This is showing the three groupings people are sorted into, along with contact info and prices -- straight to the point.

 A very simplistic layout, with an app-like grid. This goes well with aiming at their ideal demographic -- a storyboarding workshop with a poster doing exactly what a story board needs to do. It also lays out all the neccesary information

25/9/16 Editing our brief

Lydia , Wendy and I decided to slightly develop our assignment.

We want to hold an event that provides an opportunity for all creative people alike to share information, advice and banter.
The event will be held at Massey, but the room will be adjusted to become a more suitable environment for creativity and interaction.

We will advertise the event with a publication (i.e booklet, pamphlet etc...) that will inform the audience of who will be there -- we will select  or so5 people from varying degrees who will explain what they intend to talk about at the event.
They will not neccesarily have to talk about anything in their degree -- if theyre a nursing student pasisionate about photography they are more than welcome to offer advice on either of those topics.
We will also advertise the event by making a piece of card that wraps around coffee cups so that when coffee is served they can read about this up and coming event (Guerilla marketing).

Then, on the publication and coffee cup advert, we can tell the viewer to go check out our website. The website will have more information that will persuade the audience to go to the events themselves, rather than explaining the people who will be there.


My task I've been designated currently is to create a space that is comfortable, creative and leaves room for open communcation.
Using the profile of "Bonezy" from last semester, some people may be shy and not want to talk but still have questions. I considered the possibility that a whiteboard be floating around and if someone wants to ask a question they write it up and anybody can answer.
In this space there is no hierarchy -- we want to make this as comfortable and even for everyone.

13/9/16 our brief

For our idea we would like to promote connection and well being through artistic examples

We would like to create an app which people upload paintings based around the theme of “wellbeing”, with a blurb underneath explaining their idea (each week will have a new question/theme based around well being).

Through our app people can create an account then upload paintings or drawings based around each theme of the week.
Other accounts can see the images and the information written about them, then vote to see it in the pop up exhibition.
The most popular 5 images will be put into a pop up exhibition and the exhibition will be limited to a day or so.

Then, in the exhibition some images will be for sale, with profits going to mental health charities, while others (such as post cards, prints etc..) will be for free, purely for the sake of sharing art.

We will create a campaign video to make sure our pop up exhibitions and app is becoming more well known. 

Feedback

The presentation was fantastic and the illustrations were wonderful, enjoyed the metaphor of putting on a brave face. Although we need to watch out for how much we expect from the audience, something as simple as introducing our character as 'here's Bonezy - he puts on a brave face' was needed and we wouldn't have to mention it again. The illustration for our insight nailed it, but needed to be celebrated more as it's such a lovely moment - I feel so alone but am not alone in feeling this way, there's many of us. As the designer it is our role to curate the information so that the audience follows what it's all about.

This is what we need to watch out for. Getting the information on point and relevant to the objective. 

Our character should meet up and get social support - good.

The street chat and talking to strangers - a bit loose.

The justification of why he should socialise - on point, good research.

The comfort zone - too broad and get's lost. For this we offered a variety of opportunities - language, body language, environment but just needed to be a bit more assertive in defining what. So saying something like 'here are the opportunities, we've had a think and we believe tackling the environment is the way to move forward.' Perhaps this happened because we started thinking about the solution too much and not the objective.

The narrative needed to be clearer, we talked about him being down and out and the city and then shoot over to the university which over complicates the narrative. This is just a matter of curating the information better and what is needed to be known. The extra information we provided needed better context, 'other things you may want to know' but keeping it as secondary information.

The use of the word stranger is quite heavy, it's an intense word. Describing the university as a hub of social interaction is a lot better and a really strong point - there's lots going on, our character just needs to get involved. This of course still means interacting with strangers as they are people you don't know, but it has a different feel to talking to strangers on the street. The university has some great resources and assets so are we talking about interactions within the university as a student or are we talking about it as strangers in the city streets. Just a case of exploring the 'how might we' questions. All the information is there, just needs to be simplified to what will contribute to solving the problem. The angle we are coming from is what will contribute and help them overcome the hurdle rather than attempting to solve the solution as a whole.

In a nut shell curate the information better, prioritise and consider what will be permeate to the objective . Any added information for texture should be secondary.

23/08/16 Blog Entry

In class today, we discussed three ideas we found would be strongest for our question “how do we remove the awkwardness form social interactions?”.
The key words in this question are ‘remove the awkwardness’ and ‘social interaction’.
- are we the ones removing the awkwardness? Or are we just providing an event that causes the audience to di themselves?
- does the social interaction have to be face to face?

ME TOO: “several people write a secret, story or fact they relate to and if somebody else agrees they write ‘me too’ on that persons card & through that they can talk about this situation together.

DOGGY DAY: “an event organised where dog owners bring their dogs to a park along with some food and other people pet the dogs & talk to the owners. The dog collars could potentially alo have information about the dog and the owner to further push the idea of interaction.”

BUBBLED THOUGHTS:  “People write about themselves and leave contact information in a balloon then let it fly away, covering distance between strangers and also removing the face to face interaction and possible rejection from strangers”


However, through these ideas, we must consider all the points and different types of loneliness. Going back to our target audience (or for example, Bonezy):

- new to the city

-       feeling excluded

-       living alone

-       nobody to talk to

-       nobody to rely on

-       lack of physical contact

-       self esteem issues

-       trust issues

-       fear/often afraid

-       no social support

We need to pin point the forms of communication, and what ways we are building up social support/a common ground.
If loneliness is the theme, how can we get a group of people feeling lonely together in order to, not remove the loneliness entirely, but lessen the pain.

18/8/16 Reflective Diary (Ex-change)

When getting in to my group, I was told my assignment was on a good track, but I needed to make certain changes that benefitted my audience in a more nurturing way

12/8/16 Blog Entry

Speech presentation:

INTRO & CONTEXT:

City living is more taxing on the mental & physical body than we are aware of.
Disorders such as anxiety, depression & anorexia can be exacerbated from living in busy urban surroundings.
Being in a high population density city but having nobody to talk to can become daunting, and most conversations can be started with a simple “hello” which can evoke the response of “what does this person want from me?”

AUDIENCE:

That’s a big problem from Bonezy.
Meet Bonezy. He just moved to the busy city life for uni and would like to meet new people. He’s a little shy and wouldn’t partake in communal activities on his own.
Bonezy needs a friend

OPPORTUNITY:

Bonezy has to leave home to go to univerity, which means that school & the street provides an environment that is abundant with cross community interactions. If we could help ease his conversational skills, how much will this help him?

NEED:

He needs to work on his small talk skills!
If he connects with others in a mutually positive interaction, while learning about them & their interactions, his courage will grow & he will become a more active participant in his community.

INSIGHT:

Talking to strangers and opening up can leave Bonezy feeling vulnerable. In understanding this, we believe that if other people enter a social interaction on the same level of mutual vulnerability, perhaps they could connect better

WHY CARE?:

Talking & sharing personal experience has a massice impact on our physical & mental well-being. We need it to connect, and when we do we are rewarded with dopamine spikes, oxytocin helps heal wounds & self disclosure can promote positive attitudes & lower prejudice toward out groups.

QUESTION: How might we create an environment that takes the awkwardness out of social interactions?

11/8/16 Blog Entry

The information to go on the presentation:

Presentation – 7 slides

Slide 1: Intro x
Title: Connecting with others
Stress in the city

Slide 2: Context x
Title: Lonely in the city-If a stranger says hello, theres often an alterior motive. Nobody is talking & that’s the problem!

Slide 3: Audience x
Title: Meet Bonezie
He’s new to the city. The streets & university have an abundance of cultural diversity & cross community interaction

Slide 4: Issue/Opportunity x
Title: Leaving the comfort zone
Get him to talk & open up in order to make friends.

Slide 5: Need
Title: Self-based conversation
30%-40% of conversation I based around people sharing their own experiences.

Slide 6: Insight
Title: Opening up
What we open up to strangers with the same vulnerabilities as ours we create a mutual connection

Slide 7: Question
How might we remove the awkwardness from social situations in order to let close connections form?


And the presentation layout (without imagery):