Upon Reflection

+ What was your biggest learning that you took from this paper.

The biggest thing I have taken from this 12 week paper was understanding the learning process and in particular the design process. The stages we took as a pair throughout our first, more research based part of the brief, and understanding target audiences, moving to looking at how we can implement our desired action so that it would effectively meet our target audiences needs. This was difficult for Bryony and I but a great learning curve. Looking at how visual style can impact on how our target audience will interact with the space.

+ What aspect of your project are you most happy with.

The part I am most happy with for our project, is how we have understood our target audience, and within our desired space, have a point of difference to current spaces within university settings. The encouragement of cross disciplinary interaction is very important for us as designers to be fully successful in the extent of our ideas, therefore I think this part to our The Lounge space is very positive.

+ What would you do differently.

If I were to do this project again I would pay a lot more attention to already existing visuals and seeing what is being used to attract youth particularly university students and what engages them.

Thanks Tim and Phoebe, This core paper was by far the most enjoyable learning style!

Class 22 Friday 9 October

Came up with a few names over night, the hub and the metro but neither of these visuals were giving the feeling of a student social vibe. We then asked our peers in the class if something more along the lines of lounge were more appropriate. we came up with The Lounge and are now working on visuals that represent a fun social atmosphere that would attract first years in particular. This is so we can get the younger students attracted to the area first off and then they will become the ones that run it later on in the future. this is then focusing on the before during and after of our idea. 

Class 21 Thursday 8 October

Given up on the waterhole name, tim said it made him think of drinking etc So we are back to improving our visuals and changing the 

name. Both need improving so that we can attract the young students of Massey Wellington campus. This lesson was effective for us as a team as we worked on our strengths and kept looking at the space and ideas around the space and how we could improve the visuals behind our ideas.

Class 20 Friday 2 October

working on imagery The waterhole was the name we chose as it reminded us of the wild students coming together to one place. The feedback from last class was that it reminded them of the wild but that it was a student sounding name so we were reluctant to change it. We are going to carry on working on our visuals for next class.

Class 19 Thursday 1 October

interim presentation with our class and other stream -  we presented our visuals and idea to two groups from our class and then a group from the other stream. We then got to go downstairs and look at the other streams work too. The feedback we gained from our class and the other stream on level E helped us with some more ideas on the visuals for our space. We are needing to focus more on the promotion side of our event as VCD students - posters, website, Facebook adverts, buddy system.

Fourth Exchange

This exchange was by far the most effective as I had a set idea to present to the group and they gave some feedback on the event/space we are now moving forward on. They gave me their idea of what a social student setting should include. such as pool tables, bean bags outdoors, bright colours, modern vibes etc. This allowed Bryony and I to discuss and brainstorm what we thought would be best to include in the space.

Class 18 Friday 25 September

Todays lesson we had some fourth years come into class so that we could present our ideas and get some feedback/suggestions. We decided the snapchat idea was not working and to scrap it before we got too invested in it. One of the fourth years gave us an idea to create more of a space that would be used to socialise and distract them from the binge drinking side of things. We then discussed again with Tim and he told us to focus on the positives of young relationships rather than the negatives of binge drinking.

Class 17 Thursday 24 September

After our work during the week Bryony and I have looked at a campaign video and ways we can develop the snapchat idea with different visuals. We are still struggling to decide whether this is the best way to approach our issue and solve a small part of the binge drinking issue. This lesson we were able to work on our snapchat pages and get feedback from phoebe as to which were appropriate and then those that weren’t working.

Class 16 Friday 18 September

Today Bryony was away in Christchurch so I went to class and got some feedback from Tim on where we are at with our ideas. Tim basically said we need to get our POV very clear so that the way we are going to solve this issue is clear. The way I explained it to him wasn't as successful as it could've been so I do need to work on expressing my ideas clearly to the viewers. For next week we need to start designing, putting our ideas into visual examples to help get our ideas across. This lesson was helpful for me to get a good understanding of moving forward but I will need to let Bryony know what our feedback was like so we can improve for next week.

Class 15 Thursday 17 September

Today was all about bringing our prototyping ideas to a practical situation. Testing our ideas on our peers that we have thought of over the weekend. We interacted with the other stream on level E so we were able to not only get feedback from our peers but also people we hadn't connected with since last half of the semester. Seeing as our target audience is those of our age is was good to see whether our ideas were going to be effective. Our campaign video developed into a snapchat app form, we did need to change the way we explained our prototype the second time so that we weren't giving it away too much and the user was able to work out for themselves exactly what we are trying to achieve. This was more successful than previous prototyping as we got some constructive criticism and needed to really look into our POV statement so that we are tackling the issue.

Third Exchange

During our exchange today this gave us VCD students a third opportunity to test our prototyping on peers. Also ones that are from different fields so that we could get a totally different perspective on our initial ideas and whether they would work for our target audience.  The video campaign moving onto a snapchat form was seen as a positive from the people in my exchange group as they thought the audience we are targeting to get social without having to get wasted are often on snapchat sharing their daily activities with their snapchat friends. Some ideas moving forward are to practise looking at what is working and not working for current discover companies. What articles gain interest and views vs those that do not.  This was beneficial for Bryony and I as we got to take our ideas to two different groups and gain feedback from a whole range of different people within our target audience.

Class 14 Friday 11 September

Today we had a lecture from Tim regarding prototyping. So the lesson was focused on how we could put our idea into something. Designing to inform rather than explaining an idea without having a physical concept. Today during class we had the whole lesson for creating a prototype and testing it on people within our class. Getting feedback and then improving the prototype so that we could develop our idea further and have something to show for our next exchange that afternoon. Bryony and I had started off with an idea of a promotional video to get our campaign started. This was then developed into the discover part of the Snapchat App. This idea shows the better understanding we have of our audience and what is currently on trend and in use. Prototyping benefited our process as we started on one idea for a concept and moved forward to a more appropriate medium for the beginning of our campaign.

Class 13 Thursday 10 September

Today we had a few different talks from lecturers in the pitt regarding our project coming up. Phoebe gave us a talk about her dads project and how research of target market and understanding the clients wants and needs is very important in the process of creating something that is beneficial to the users. Lee spoke to us about past students final projects so that we understand moving forward what is expected of us. During class today was focusing on what our concept was and how we are going to develop this into a user friendly and purposeful deliverable. This was an important process for us as a pair as we showed each other the research and ideas we had both done over the break and was beneficial to come together so that we could choose the best parts of both our ideas and move forward.

Study break reflective post

Today I have been working on a more refined Idea that would respond to the brief and target a specific audience. I liked the idea of having an installation piece in town right in the middle of the drinking scene. Interacting with the slightly intoxicated youth? possibly using shock elements to make them reflect on their drinking habits. I looked into 3 key steps that would work well with drawing our audience in, keeping them on a path that is more suitable for their health and wellbeing and then making sure they stick to it. So they are as follows; Increasing awareness, shift attitudes, and finally this leads to a change in behaviour.
There is an Australian campaign which has a similar movement to what we believe would best benefit our target audience. "How to drink properly" focused on people aged 18-24 and is based around the theme of "Stay Classy". Rather than trying to  completley stop the drinking culture in New Zealand we want to promote fun, social ways of drinking and enjoying friends company while not going overboard on the booze. This is something Bryony and I will discuss when we bring our ideas together to develop our initial concepts.

Class 12 Friday 21 August

Today we did a lot of ideating with Phoebe. As a pair we got some solutions flowing. Upon reflection we got some great feedback in order to continue researching and ideating over the break from peers in class as well as reflecting with each other. This will benefit us for the upcoming study break as we gained feedback on some possible solutions to delve into while also understanding what research needs to be completed to really relate with and understand our target audience.

Class 11 Thursday 20 August

Today was just thinking about where we will go from here. Bryony and I have decided to continue working together and we now need to fill in an ethics form to say who we will interview for research in target audience. This lesson was important to work out the necessary paper work for the research, relating to ethics and looking forward to our fourth year research project.

Class 10 Friday 14 August

Looking at an interesting ted talk about how design thinking often means looking beyond the brief to meet the clients needs. The MRI machines, i think thats what they were? Was designed and he went and sat in on one of the sessions, where the child looked terrified so he believed he had failed as a designer. What came out of this failure was a huge win for the company and for hospitals all round America as it made children feel safe and enjoy the adventure while they had a serious procedure. Basically this class made me feel encouraged to improve through design, in this case at the moment, the current culture surrounding Drinking in New Zealand.

Class 9 Thursday 13 August

The hand in for our visual brief was today! We all laid out our briefs along a long table, and the other three classes did the same. This was a great way to be able to see everyones work and look at other ways different students had approached the brief. For the first hour was in the pit again talking about where to from here and it allowed us to think about what the future may hold for our briefs. After that, looking around at the different briefs it helped us to decide whether or not we were sticking to our brief or looking at someone else's. Bryony and I decided to continue working as a team together and we will be sticking to our brief as we felt after today that all the effort we had put into looking at youth alcohol abuse could now be put into play as we look at some desired actions, i.e. positive relationships.

Second Exchange

During our Exchange today we got to see how far everyone had come compared to the first exchange, where we were all in the very early stages of our projects. It was very interesting to see the development and enabled the three VCD students to get feedback on their briefs from a different perspective/creative eye. Some common feedback I received about the two spreads Bryony and I had put together was that the black background spreads text was too large, which was also the same feedback as in class today. Also there needs to be a wider range of imagery to support the text so that is my task for this weekend. Overall I felt this was very successful as we were able to critique each others work and provide constructive feedback to help develop our projects.

Class 8 Friday 7 August

Bryony and I both came to class with different options for spreads but with same text. Slightly different imagery was used as the roller coaster concept i used were hand draw swirls where as Bryony's were photos I had taken of a light movement. After class feedback we received throughout the day we decided on using most of the ideas throughout the spreads I had done yet also combining some of the vector infographics from Bryony's spreads. This was a very productive class for us as a pair as we worked on our brief and improved it ready for hand in next week. Over the weekend I am going to take photos of different drinking situations to best show our idea. We are then meeting on Monday to finalise the spreads and get it ready for print.

Class 7 Thursday 6 August

The Pit talk surrounding ideas behind design thinking by Chris was very thought provoking. It made me question parts of the design practise and realise that there is a wider opportunity for designers in different business and aspects of life as we can put design thinking in to practise everywhere.
After this talk we were in studio getting feedback from different groups on our current spreads. We were a little stuck on imagery so feedback from different partners helped us decide on specific imagery. By tomorrows class Bryony and I will create two different options for spreads and decide on which works best from further feedback. This class overall made me feel more confident in our ideas and how we can best put them into play.

Class 6 Friday 31 July

During todays class we got to team up with next doors class as one of their tutors is away. This meant we had a look at a whole other classes ideas and ways of approaching their visual brief. We gave as well as receiving feedback on how we could improve our ideas or make them more clear.
Once we had discussed our ideas with each class we went back to our studio time and Phoebe gave Bryony and I some great suggestions on how we can make our body copy more clear while also have a more concrete set of facts behind the text. Once we have got sick of editing our text she suggested we look for images that support our current text and then see if we can go back and improve the text/facts again.
By next week we need to have a more concrete set of text and some possible images/theme across the 8 spreads that we can continue to develop before week 5 due on Thursday 13 August.

Class 5 Thursday 30 July

Today in class we were required to bring in a draft of our 8 spreads we went through them all and discussed with Tim as a class how we were going to show our facts with images that backed the facts up rather than just showed exactly what the facts were saying. We decided to start writing a list of everything we could think of when it came to drinking the tangibles and intangibles. This led to a variety of metaphoric ideas. Our task by tomorrows class is to draw up a couple of the spreads with some possible images relating to the words/themes we came up with today. So Bryony is going to do the Background and Audience with two themes: Rollercoaster/getting ready and Zoo theme and I will be doing the Issue and Audience Motivation.

First Exchange

During this exchange we met up with our assigned groups mine being group 30.
We have 3 VCD students in our group including myself, and then one Industrial, one Fashion and one Textile Student. This wide variety of majors allowed us to have a wider understanding of wellbeing. Each major has taken the brief from a different angle, and creating/designing things that fit with their interests. For example; the industrial students are looking at wellbeing through food. Ethan's group are focusing on the comparison of American culture with Japanese culture. A specific example he showed us was trying to eat McDonalds with chop sticks, and sushi with a Knife and Fork. This is a completely different way of looking at wellbeing yet seems very interesting.
When we next meet we have organised to bring lunch with us and have a lunch meeting as it was a very long session from 9-1 to have not bought any food with us!

Class 4 Friday 24 July

Today was very productive for Bryony and I. We split off and met with another pair and presented our ideas with each other to help narrow down our topic. After researching and collating our 4 pages each we both decided that drug and alcohol is the most common addiction in youth 15-20. Once we presented our ideas to another pair we got some more feedback and they suggested we just narrow it down to alcohol. We felt this would work well as the drinking culture in NZ is more often than not drinking to get drunk rather than appreciating a glass of wine much like french culture.
Phoebe has suggested to us that we should be focusing on what causes the addiction and abuse of alcohol i.e. social anxiety, depression etc.
- We have arranged to meet on Tuesday to bring our work in and compare and add or take out areas as necessary.

Class 3 Thursday 23 July

Today we showed each other the research we had done since last week. Unfortunately my lack of understanding and interpreting the email sent out to us I was looking more into a solution for when we aren't feeling well rather than issues that we need to solve regarding well being.
Through listening to other members of the class and the issues they have chosen I decided that addiction may be something I am interested in researching. We then paired up and worked out with our partner exactly what our issue was going to be.
-Addiction in youth 15-20.
Before next class we are to have 8 pages with each of the 8 topics for our visual brief on them and possibly some facts backing them up, Bryony and I split it up into 4 each.

Class 2 Friday 17 August

I wasn't present at this class as I had a family issue, but caught up on the Lifehack workshop and did a wellbeing brainstorm myself. I was informed we discussed what wellbeing was to us in more depth. Personally being happy with myself and feeling healthy and fit is probably what makes me feel well. I did used to have very negative thoughts about my body image but I have started to over come that and accept what I look like and appreciate myself for who I am.
-Things to think about for next class are some ideas of well being that I would be interested in and solutions to wellbeing.

Class 1 Thursday 16 July

After our class introduction in the Pit we separated into our streams and thought about times we had felt well, times we didn't feel so well and then how we could improve our mood when we weren't so well. This helped us as a class to determine what wellbeing means to different people. Sometimes the smaller things are things that make us the most happy or content.
Personally I just feel well hanging out with my close friends, being by myself can be good sometimes but I definitely prefer company.