PRESENTATION BOARDS

REFLECTION 4: Module Evaluation

Overall, I really enjoyed this module and felt that I got quite invested in it. However, I did struggle with lots of things throughout and it has been one of the most challenging topics that I have explored to immerse myself in. My biggest struggle was dealing with such a sensitive subject in the practical and trying to do it justice. However, exploring this issue within COP worked well because it gave me so much room to conduct both primary and secondary research, to make sure that I got it right. Although, the 'Mental Health Conference' was less helpful, my personal interviews, questionnaire and market research impacted massively on the decisions that I made. Some of these included weather to take an abstract or literal approach to representation; what color scheme to use; what tone of voice to use (sensitive, not too dark, not too light either); how best to reach my audience and how clear or ambiguous to make my images. Primary research is something I have never really valued the importance of, but it is definitely something I need to continue doing!

The biggest lesson that I learnt from the whole project was how effective illustration and art in general can be in communicating abstract feelings and concepts without defining them in words. This is because of the emotional, subjective yet descriptive nature of art. This is something that became more and more clear as I wrote my essay (it is essentially what connects mental health to creativity) and went on to form the basis for how I approached my practical. In my introduction I talked about my aim to discover weather there are any links between anxiety or depression and creativity so that I could try to use them positively to help sufferers. I think that the project definitely answered this question and I got the outcome that I wanted from it. However, generally I found the constraints of dealing with such a sensitive topic and abstract feelings quite draining and I constantly second guessed everything I created. I can see how effective art can be in doing this so I am definitely going to continue to explore it in my practice but for now I am going to have a break and focus on something more factual and maybe controversial. Something I can make my own comment on!!

Overall, I think that my essay and practical are both quite independent projects with their own aims but with similar themes. Initially, I was worried that they were too separate in that I was not directly practically exploring the content of my essay. However, ultimately I found that they connected and fed into each other in many ways that I had expected. In terms of the t-shit brand, it is on track but there are still a lot of hurdles that we need to cross before it is launched in March. In my SP statement of intent, I said that I wanted to gain some more client/ business experience while I still have the support of University and starting my own business seems like the perfect opportunity. Working out how we are going to ethically print the t-shirts is probably the biggest hurdle and there is still some definite room for improvement on the t-shirt augmented reality videos. I have seen that they are most effective when the movement is simple but obvious, like in ‘Caged Thoughts’. The motion at the moment is too subtle and unclear in designs such as ‘Drowning in Thought’.

REFLECTION 3: Peer Review 2

Since the last crit, I have continued to explore the links between anxiety or depression and creativity. For the practical, after finding a common interest in helping young men suffering from anxiety and depression to speak up, me and a marketing student at Leeds Beckett (who sits within the demographic) have decided to launch a t-shirt brand. Lots of our friends are very interested in fashion and wearing the right thing but mental health is a taboo. Our aim is to bring mental health into men’s fashion as a way of bringing the conversation to them. The brand will also give its profits to mind, further supporting our mission.

In the crit I got some feedback saying that men won’t want to wear their mental health on their backs. Putting my designs on t-shirts is the wrong context and they are better suited to editorial. The fact that not everyone wants a t-shirt that portrays symptoms of anxiety and depression is a definite point for consideration. Since the crit, I have asked around and had a variety of responses so I am going to vary the t-shirts from more subtle to more obvious. On the subtler t-shirts the concept will be made clear in an animated version on the website. We would also like to have something that you scan on the tshirt that plays the animated version on your phone, maybe a bar-code? But we are yet to find an app. This would work well as a light access point to starting a conversation about anxiety or depression. By showing friends their animated t-shirt, young men would do it almost without intending to. However, in terms of it being the wrong context, I personally believe that it is the right context if we want to reach our audience.

Trying to create designs that are wearable and attractive but that also communicate the concept has proved a challenge. This is because I have had to find a sort of a balance between not making light of a dark issue but also not creating something so dark that young men won’t want to wear it on a t-shirt. This is the first time I have had to balance two such different contexts. However, I have found working with someone within the targeted demographic to be very useful because I can get constant feedback from my audience. I have also found that having put so much time into the crafting each designs so that they balance the context, they have become quite separate both in subject and style. This works well to attract a wider audience, but I am worried that they won’t sit together well as a collection. However, I am hoping that I can unite them with a limited color scheme and by using a clean graphic style.

I have also recently conducted the same interviews with two sufferers and a therapist and their responses have really helped me to define anxiety in my essay as well as making me feel more secure in the direction I have taken my practical work. All of them said that the Mind definition of anxiety was accurate, but too generalized. All the symptoms were listed but most sufferers only experience a couple, making each experience of anxiety different. This supports my earlier decision to focus on specific symptoms rather than the disease as a whole, as people will hopefully find specific t-shirts more relatable.

Northern Healthcare Conference

Reflection: Generally, the conference was fairly interesting and I took a few things from it but it wasn’t exactly what I thought I had signed up to. Online all it said was ‘there will be talks from various healthcare professionals sharing their insights and ideas into how we can progress the mental health sector’ then when I got there the theme was ‘the economic benefits of assisted living’ and most of the people there were commissioners. I wanted to interview some people but none of their lines of work were very related to the questions I wanted to ask. I think I’m better off interviewing sufferers, artists and possibly someone in the field of art therapy?

Creativity, Mental Health Triangulation Notes

REFLECTION 2: Peer review 1

Since my SOI I have changed my focus to exploring the links between creativity and mental health. It is something I keep stumbling across, a big debate on the Eye on Design website. It is also something I as a creative would love to solve and a more narrowed approach to exploring anxiety and depression. Initially, I thought about doing some editorials, which describe some of these links. However, I found this to be too limiting. To represent creativity, I found myself using obvious symbols like pencils and paint. This is something I would like to avoid. It also wasn't doing anything to help sufferers of anxiety and depression and this is something I aim to do.

In terms of primary research, I want to do a questionnaire to find out how creativity and mental health come together in my peer’s lives but I am struggling to know which questions I can and can’t ask. This is something I need to be very sensitive toward, so I am going to get it checked by multiple tutors before I use anything. I also managed to get the contact of the curator of the Bethelm Mental Hospital gallery, who I emailed last week. He hasn't replied yet but fingers crossed!! I definitely need some more personal insights.

Generally, I am finding looking at anxiety and depression and trying to visually describe them a struggle. The aim of my work is to use my knowledge to describe them enough to start a conversation and explain them to non-sufferers. I know that as a non-sufferer I can never fully understand them myself and I am not trying to. With the knowledge that I don’t have anxiety or depression I’m finding that people have a very negative opinion on my work from the outset and I have had this voiced a lot. I am finding this difficult and I am unsure how sensitive to be. I have been using visual metaphor to clearly describe different feelings (inner conflict, struggle, tension). However, I am worried I am in danger of making light of a dark issue. Perhaps a more abstract approach would be better. It was suggested that I could use movement and sound to contort a brain on after effects and create an immersive experience. This could work well. In order to tackle this I am going to keep showing my work to friends who suffer from anxiety or depression, to discover which works best.

People also keep suggesting that my images would work well as editorials. However, I don’t want to go in this direction. I want to make the designs more accessible to sufferers (my target audience is still men age 21-25). I am interested in maybe starting a campaign or bringing the designs into a context that they are interested in like fashion. I need to start interviewing some of my male friends to see if they have any insights on how to do this. I thought that the ‘Time to Change’ beer mat campaign was interesting because it bought the conversation to them. Maybe I could do a subtler version of this?

Another change in focus ..

Right, I've decided to change the direction of my extended essay yet again..
I am going to instead look at the link between creativity in mental health. There is lots of really interesting information on this that I keep stumbling across. I feel that it is more narrowed approach to looking at depression and anxiety and i think I'd enjoy researching It much more. I think that it could also make for some interesting studies and questionnaires.

What am I going specifically explore within this?

Why are creatives more creatives diagnosed with anxiety and depression than people in other industries?
Are anxious people more likely to be creative? Because they use it to escape? To express their thoughts to help them cope?
OR
Is the creative industry a cause of anxiety and depression? The pressure, personal exposure, negative feedback, long hours, constant stress?

I could look specifically at illustration??