1st Client Meeting

I wanted to make sure that I went into this brief as well informed as possible, so pushed for the first client meeting to happen fairly early in the process so that any vague areas in the brief could be made explicit. The meeting went well and we all came away with a much better idea of what we had been asked to do. While also being able to give our client a sense of ourselves at the same time, as it is a two way relationship at the end of the day.

The first area we wanted to discuss was the form of the outcome, if they had any prior visions to what this outcome could look like in regards to format or where specifically they wanted it to be be place as this was left fairly vague in the brief. After discussing it we found that the client is open to almost anything and part of our challenge will be to find the optimal way to to appeal to the audience. Our message is to get people to check their pulse for Afib and beyond that we have a lot of freedom of where we can take it. This is an opportunity to really push the idea beyond just simple posters and turn it into something that is going to grab eyes.

A further question I had was relating to the publishing entity behind the brief, who are way saying this message is coming from? This however we weren’t able to get quite as straighter answer for, the client is going to hopefully look into this for us so that we can be sure which of their facets it is coming from.

While we were chatting our client stressed how despite we want them to see their GP about it that it should not be something to scare them into it and they should just go when convenient. From this I was considering how easy it would be to put together enough information so that people could test it for themselves before going to a GP, after all it is measured by pure quantity of beats per minute. So if the message was to check and if your resting rate is over 120(for example) then consider seeing your GP. By sending people straight to the GP I feel it does give that sense of panic the client doesn’t want, and finding ways of interactivity could make the project stand out.

Lastly we got on to the topic of our last project, in which we had a handful of stroke survivors as part of the research group, one of which suffers from Afib and it was the cause of their stroke. As we already know him it is consideration that if and human aspect is needed that he would be a good one to contact knowing that he is always keen with this sort of thing. We cleared it with the client if they would be okay if the project did end up going that way and they liked the idea, so it is definitely and avenue that will be considered.

Now that I have a better idea of the brief I feel that I can begin ideating; still keeping the value of research in mind however for each area I look at.

Relating Campaigns

Here I am going to collate some related campaigns from other organisations so that I can compare them, analysing what they do that works and what their weaknesses are – considering both design and what they portray.

Northern Ireland Chest Heart & Stroke

The first I looked at was Northern Ireland Chest Heart & Stroke, despite still . being a reasonably small campaign it was still the biggest I could find, and also one of the few that branches across multiple mediums. Furthermore it portrays the link between the stroke and AF which few show and is particularly important to this.

The biggest strength to this video is its production value, it has been created by a trained animator and looks very well done. In the context of our brief I feel a video like this would be too long, it was made for the purpose of someone specifically seeking out the information. If I was to create any moving image content I would likely keep it to a minimal advertising length. Where possible across all of my designs I would like to abstract the visuals slightly so that they avoid cliches of just medical looking diagrams, I would like to avoid that aesthetic where possible and keep it reasonably lighthearted.

These two posters are clearly created for two separate purposes, one for advertising and then the other that is informative. This is something that is still worth considering as sometimes there is a time and place for informative posters such as in GP surgeries and hospitals, something that does not need to be as attention grabbing and can be referenced easily. The poster is instantly recognisable of what it is about because of the vibrant red and the heart rhythm diagram, the method of advertising could be slightly more out there and use a catchier motive that an audience will remember. Trying to find a way that avoids these design and colour cliches will be a goal.

Obesity Campaign Cancer Research

A campaign that I feel really did not follow stereotypes for medical campaign design was Cancer Research’s Obesity campaign. It did everything that previously mentioned campaigns didn’t do using provocative design that inspires brain interaction to gently decipher what the message is without being able to be misinterpreted. They proved that this kind of design could be more than friendly and can be deeply persuasive in this context and they even kept it pretty minimal. I don’t think this is the project to be quite as on the nose as that but I would like to try break out of the tradition you currently see.

AF Association

When searching into organisations that deal with AF one of the main ones i came across was the AFA. As part of one of their campaigns this was their printed poster. The slogan and imagery are actually pretty powerful at putting across the message and it really does make you question yourself. However it does slightly miss the mark in further information, I think some nod to why it could save your life would take the design further along with possibly some stronger typography. There is a fine balance between too much information and not enough, and this is a reminder that with not enough the viewer could be left none the wiser to what it is trying to say.

Briefing and Initial Research

As part of the design for real life brief I have chosen the Brief Your Health: Highlighting Atrial Fibrillation as a Major Risk factor for Stroke. This brief is centred around raising awareness the impact Atrial Fibrillation has on the chance of having a stroke. Atrial Fibrillation is when the heart’s upper chambers contract randomly and this can sometimes mean the muscles cannot relax properly between contractions. This reduces the heart’s efficiency and performance and then can develop other problems as a result such as blood clots that can lead to stroke.

The eventual outcome will be some kind of campaign to make people aware of this. I am particularly happy with being able to get this brief as it was high up on my preferred choice of briefs. This brief in particular attracted me after the success of the last stroke related project, that combined with the opportunity to work on the project by myself should make it a fun and challenging experience with plenty to do. I had also met the brief setter Niki while partaking in the ‘Get Involved’ project as she was part of the research group so knowing what she was like helped further to inform my decision on choosing this particular brief.

After confirming that I was going to be doing this particular brief the first job was to further go through the brief in detail to look for a starting place to research and make sure I fully understood it. From the brief there are a few key points that I feel need to be met.

• That it emphasises that symptoms of Atrial Fibrillation are not always readily apparent so you won’t necessarily know that it is affecting you.
• That the screening process is easy and non intrusive so it is not any hassle to get it checked.
• Make the relating statistics to Stroke very clear and how the two are closely related and one leads to the other.
• Finally the target audience must be considered, although it will not likely be made explicit I think considerations such as legibility must be made for the age bracket of 60+

Some of the basic facts outlined in the brief are that having Atrial Fibrillation means your risk of stroke is 5 times higher. Around 1.2 million people in the UK have AF and many may not even know. These are both hard hitting statistics and could be important later in the project within the materials.

On reflection I do not think that I have heard much mention of this condition before reading about it especially in a stroke context, which does show its not as well known as a lot of the other causes of stroke. Even after a quick search I can find very few campaigns that take it from this angle, so it will be good to create something knowing that it is not just going into a crowded market. My next task will be to further look into the types of campaigns are out there, I suspect there will not be many of this specific topic so I intend to look at some for stroke and heart conditions to compare the kinds of tones that they are trying to set and their method of persuasion.