Learning Outcomes:
- Learning Research current themes, trends and moods relevant to your project requirements and goals.
- Distill your research to outline a positioning statement for your project strategy.
- Imagine three mood boards to contextualise your positioning statement.
Lecture Reflection; How do themes and trends forecast help to ensure a project is planned and positioned effectively to deliver strategic roles?
Trends can depend on an emotional connection or our own filter when it comes to using research to inform design decisions. Exploring the vast amount of content on a range of online platforms it can be overwhelming to decide what is a significant trend that should be delved into deeper. The issue is that we tend to see the things that we wish to see or what is appealing to us when we look for inspiration online. There is a benefit of exploring trends that are not directly related to Graphic Design, or maybe even to the client brief in order to develop a wider perspective of the clients needs and user requirements. The counter argument to the development of trends and ideas would be that a clients budget may not allow for these ideas to be fully explored, and until tested and refined will clients understand emerging trends that a designer may present? I guess that this comes down to the trend setters, the innovators and then early adopters. These are the key areas for a clients growth and development in a successful project but the client themselves need to be early adopters and the designers need to be the innovators.
It is argued that these trends can be both advantageous and also a disadvantage to a project, the latest idea of generative design is an iterative concept that uses code and programming to develop suitable solutions dependant on the requirements. A designer is then able to fine tune and develop the outcome. This idea on one hand seems to be the lazy way of designing, it removes the human element in the initial stages of the project. However it can also present design solutions that a designer may not have considered. Maybe this is the way that design is going, can Ai takeover the role of the designer? Is this a trend that is set to revolutionise the design community?
Themes and trends of my project
The Mental Health Act 1983 was used more than 58,000 times to detain people in 2014/15, representing the highest ever year-on-year increase ever (approximately 10 per cent). Fifty-one per cent of mental health inpatients were subject to the Act. Overall, this represents an increase of 8,982 (18 per cent) since the CQC began monitoring the Act in 2009/10.
Perceptions of the relationship between physical and mental disorders have changed. This has been a key development. It is now widely acknowledged that this relationship is complex, reciprocal and acts through multiple pathways. Untreated mental disorders result in poor outcomes for co-morbid physical illnesses. Individuals with mental disorders have an increased risk of suffering from physical illness because of diminished immune function, poor health behaviour, non-compliance with prescribed medical regimens and barriers to obtaining treatment for physical disorders. Moreover, individuals with chronic physical illness are significantly more likely than other people to suffer from mental disorders.
https://www.who.int/mental_health/policy/services/3_context_WEB_07.pdf?ua=1
Over the past decade there has been a rise in awareness of Mental Health conditions that have been fighting a funding battle to best support people. With more than 50,000 more people seeking mental health services and support a year since 2003 / 2004 there has been a decline amount of investment made by governments to help combat this issue. While there has been investments made, this does not go far enough to help those in crisis need in a significant timely manner that helps prevent long lasting health impacts. There are trends and support that is available to those who seek it that is not directly linked to their GP or Hospital. The rise in awareness of Yoga, Mindfulness and our general well being has made a significant contribution to the self help culture born out of frustration of the lack of support that may be readily available. The use of social media and ‘influencers’ have also contributed to this, I believe. In some cases, support from a GP is not entirely ncececcery and this self medicated support of developing meaningful habits that help us better take care of our selves in an ever changing and busy life. I believe that early prevention and support is better than after care, for this reason I aim to use this trend as a pivotal point for my project.
There are huge health benefits to a mindfulness practice and Yoga, there is also studies that show we are able to eat our way into healthier better lives. Mental health should not just be seen as a problem that needs to be fixed by medication and counselling. Yes there are cases where this is essential to the patients wellbeing but again, early prevention through meditation, good diet and taking care of our bodies can help improve or mental wellbeing. I truly believe that good diet and exercise and help transform our daily mental as well as our physical wellbeing.
Calm was nominated by Apple’s App Store editors as one of their top apps of 2017, and today it claims 26 million downloads overall, with 50,000 new users each day.
https://venturebeat.com/2018/06/20/calm-raises-27-million-at-250-million-valuation-to-grow-its-meditation-app-globally/
Positioning Statement;
Last week I asked the question, how does the school better support its students to promote a better attitude to mental health and to raise an awareness of mental wellbeing. After some reflection of this idea and research into the support that already exists, I believe the question should be extended to, how can we create a positive working environment that aims to promote a positive attitude towards mental wellbeing through lifestyle changes. The support already exists for those who are in need. The guidance, advice, knowledge and lifestyle choices are not always apparent in the early intervention of mental wellbeing. There should be a culture shift within education and there needs to be a change in working attitudes. After spending a week in a French school, working with German and Spanish teachers, the issues of education still exist but the culture towards our working environment and attitudes towards progress can differ. The British workforce spend more hours per day at their job, but are amongst the least productive. Statistics suggest that the GDP growth against hours worked, we as brits are ranked 13th. We also have a working culture that can be toxic to our wellbeing, the fear of missing out or appearing weak against our colleagues can result in the decline in our mental wellbeing. This strive for excellence and performance driven culture in work is resulting in more a 4% increase in individuals being admitted to hospital under the Mental Health Act.
My strategy and approach for this project is to create a series of visual responses that offer clarity and support for a range of mental health issues. As there are a range of triggers, symptoms and influences that can attribute to our ill health I believe that identifying these early will aim to better support individuals. The over arching theme will be a better body and a better mind, if we can make changes to our working life that enables us to better manage and adapt to changes in our working environment I believe that then we are able to build a better tolerance to change or control. Work place stress can be to blame for a significant amount of ‘sickness days’ and is valued at an estimated £77.5 billion each year. If schools are able to provide meaningful support to staff and students and create a discussion around the subject I hope that the project will create more of an open conversation around mental health, support and work management.
Pixels and Serifs. 