1. Research & Context
“Name” is a community-focused campaign that is supported by public initiatives which aims to reduce electronic waste through repairing, reusing, and sharing knowledge. The project encourages people to rethink replacing technology as an automatic option, and instead explores creative and practical ways of expanding the life spans of their devices.
This campaign would consist of a series of small books (A5, ~20 pages each) spanning a specific timeline and each book edition would cover different ways to remake, reuse and potentially recycle technology in a DIY project format. This campaign also wants to put emphasis on creativity and helping people engage with real objects instead of overly relying on touch-screen technology.
The target audience for this campaign would be people who use technology regularly but may feel disconnected from how it works physically, whether it’s due to intimidation, lack of experience, or convienience culture. I have decided to focus on a few different generations and how they physically interact with technology.
Whilst researching different approaches to solve the problem that this brief describes, I have come up with multiple ways to present the information to the target audience in a way that interests and engages them. One main issue that I was struggling with whilst working on this campaign is trying to make sure that the content produced would actually appeal to the target audience I’m targeting. An example of this would be questioning whether books and magazines in any way could capture the attention of people who may not be drawn to books in the first place. My first instict when trying to answer this was thinking of social media implementation however this also showed another potential issue – there is so much over-stimulating content on social media to the extent that people might not pay attention to everything they are seeing. This is antithetical to the message of this campaign which is trying to connect people through repairing objects and not needlessly upgrading devices.
Before working on idea generation for this project, I have decided to look for real examples of campaigns and design that fulfills a similar purpose to my own project. E-Waste Autopsy by Leyla Acaroglu was an interactive exhbition that explored the underlying reasons behind
Another example of a community or user-driven platform that is based around repairing and reusing electronics is Instructables. This website offers instructional articles on how to build or repair different objects – this specific website has caught my attention because it has a human-centered approach to it and doesn’t feel overly technical or indimidating for beginners. An example of the human-centered approach can be found when clicking on options on any article and ‘I Made It’ shows up.
2. Conceptual Development
Idea generation, visual exploration, iteration
This is a physical mood board I put together to have a better idea on not only the style, colours and typography to use in this campaig, but also the texture and tactile feeling. This was important to me at this stage because it allowed me to think through a different perspective and not just agree with my intuition.
An idea that I wasn’t initially even considering was taking inspiration from field guides
3. Experimentation & Prototyping
Testing formats, materials, media systems
When I was working on this project, there was one issue I kept coming back to – I kept getting stuck on a specific idea or layout and I wasn’t sure how to continue working on it further. One idea I had to counteract this problem was to pick up random objects or materials and try to relate it back to this campaign so that I can break out of my conventional thought patterns and hopefully think of a more effective, unusual approach. An example of this was when I used nail polish to create a typographical experiment due to the fitting colours of the polish and its interesting texture. Later, I decided to scan it in and add it to a poster to create type that has a human-made aspect to it instead of sticking to a technical, perfectly measured typeface.
4. User Testing & Feedback
When creating prototypes and mockups for this campaign, I have made sure to ask for feedback from a variety of people so that my designs can be checked for issues that I might have not noticed from looking at them for too long.
5. Informed Design Decisions & Direction
Refinement, rationale, and preperation for final realisatiion
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