Burnout - Crit with Anyways studio/Itsnicethat

10.04.2019

Following on from the Rube Goldberg workshop that Charlie Sheppard from Anyways studio ran I had spoke to him about having a studio visit when I was next down in London. 

I went into the Anyways studio in Haggerston - London which is a shared space with the Itsnicethat an LectureinProgress team. It was really fun to be shown around the working space and then I was able to sit with Charlie for an hour or so and go through a project that I wanted some crit on and also help with development. I decided to speak to him about my research project on Millennial burnout which was useful as it was the one that I still needed to do the most design development on. We spoke about the concept and how taking the idea of the 15 degree head tilt to manipulate a typeface is something conceptually really interesting, but easy to grasp for an outside audience. Charlie said that the rationale is strong and now that the 15 degree tilt has been decided upon it could now become a graphic element and visual rule that could be applied in a number of ways. I needed to decide exactly what it was I wanted to raise awareness on - the fact that people constantly feel guilty about switching off, being switched on constantly or just reminding people that they can enjoy downtime. 

Village Green - https://villagegreenstudio.com/

Charlie spoke to me about the campaign that Village Green had just released for the D&AD Festival - very bold and not necessarily obvious what it is straight away. 

- bold

- simple animations

- consistent colour palette

- custom typeface

- hyper-kinetic identity for the D&AD festival

- “a new graphic form”

- “an elementary design sensibility that speaks to the foundations of creativity at the festival.”

- amorphous, bright, bold, and quite brilliant identity which reflects the shape-shifting nature of creativity in the contemporary world

Colour palette inspiration:

4creative - angles typeface dixon baxi design agency 
This typeface for the Channel 4 creative out put is a good reference point to the typeface that I am trying to create as the identity and recognition has been built up be taking the angle of the number 4 and then applying it to the typeface in a subtle, but somehow obvious way. 

bold weight cut off

each weight differently 

maybe the manipulated typeface is just for the tagline - the normal for the writing on the campaign materials

layout the letters at a 15degree angle?? the 15 degree angle is the graphic principle now that will drive all of the output

simple concept = powerful graphics and easy to catch peoples attention 

‘have you ever considered that kids need downtime’ Donny Darko 

constantly switched on 

ruining a moment 

‘are you sure?’ - angel on the shoulder, parents 

tagline - always online, guilt free downtime, treat yourself

highlight the guilt that is there but doesn’t need to be there

celebrate unstructured time 

kessle kramer - cant do any better but will do our best

beer mat 

will you regret this in the morning 

bold colour palette 

bench - do you have time for this break 

things to think about:

- a very heavy topic that can be quite personal and serious (mental health) so to make it humorous would just make people think and notice it rather than feel upset about it

I have decided that I want the campaign to remind people that downtime is good, normal and necessary to have a good productive life. I want to address this idea in a humorous way through the reminders that you may expect to hear form the angel on your shoulder rather than the devil. The design campaign will be present in areas that people commonly go to enjoy downtime and the small messages will pop up in a number of ways that question the guilt that the person may be feeling if they are for example sat having a drink instead of being at the gym or something similar. The campaign aims to increase awareness that we do often feel guilt about downtime, but it is actually something that we do need.