Helen Anderson

Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK

Project Question

How can graphic design be used to advocate for public libraries?

Aim and Objective

Public libraries support our communities in a variety of ways, improving our social, educational, economic, and cultural wellbeing. They provide free and open access to all kinds of information to all people and are one of the very few indoor spaces where everyone is welcome and there is no entrance fee. You can go in and use the resources, you can go in and better yourself or you can simply go in and just be you.

Over the last decade however, our statutory right to a comprehensive and efficient public library service has become increasingly vague in its application as almost one thousand public libraries have been closed. Spending and the number of trained staff are in decline and further cuts and closures are expected in response to the Covid-19 Pandemic.

Predicated on the belief that public libraries are indeed worth advocating for, the aim of this project is to use graphic design to inform and enhance the perception of public libraries in the UK in a bid to counter further closures and reductions in funding.

Central to this aim was the objective of highlighting the role public libraries play as a piece of social and cultural infrastructure. Collaborating with public library users, staff, advocates and activists, a range of methods were utilised to arrive at a meaningful outcome that can instigate real change.

Final Outcome

Whilst research suggested that the Covid-19 Pandemic has exacerbated the obstacles public libraries face when it comes to advocacy, it is evident that these have been long-standing issues and are likely to continue as technology, culture and society evolve. As such the challenge was to design an outcome that will adapt alongside public libraries, advocating for them in a proactive, sustainable manner reflecting both the diversity of services and experiences. To that end I have designed The Story They Tell, a crowdsourced visual library that speaks to the power of public libraries.

The Story They Tell instils the importance of bringing about social change through a community with shared goals rather than as an individual. It serves as an ongoing record of why public libraries matter, highlights what is lost when libraries close, provides valuable resources for those working in them, and underlines how important the physical and digital space of public libraries is.

The gallery features a variety of visuals including protest posters, service announcements and written stories. Clicking on each poster reveals more information contributing to the wider story that public libraries tell. The posters can be freely shared and downloaded so that people can show their support either online or in person. People working in libraries may wish to use them, maybe people protesting, maybe book lovers or perhaps people will simply visit for inspiration.

The Story They Tell features a project created by the organisation Libraries Hacked who create applications using open data about public libraries. I was conscious that people visiting the site may be encouraged to visit their local library, so it was deemed worthwhile to be able to direct them to this information.

On the ‘Submit your design’ page, people are encouraged to participate in the project and submit their own visuals. A recurrent theme throughout my research was that it is challenging to convey how a public library can mean anything to anyone, yet The Story They Tell embraces this unique quality, welcoming contributions from everyone which will reflect the multiplicity of roles public libraries have. A template is provided for people as a starting point for a poster or if they would prefer not to ‘design’ a poster people can use the template to write about their experiences instead.

Overall, the project has been well received to date yet as it does mark a departure from typical public library advocacy, it will take time to develop. What I have created over the course of the module is simply the start of The Story They Tell, an infrastructure to house a repository of posters reflecting both the past and present and crucially, helping to support the future of public libraries.

How has your practice developed while studying the MA in Graphic Design with a global cohort?

Over the last two years, my skills and confidence as a designer have strengthened considerably. Studying with a global cohort has meant that I have been introduced to different perspectives, learning new ways of working and developing my practice in response to this. The importance of collaboration and being able to write about your work have been notable lessons from the course whilst the idea of graphic design authorship has given me many ideas for my next steps after this MA.

Please follow this external platform link, to view the Final MA Project in full and/or portfolio documentation.

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Lucy Davis

Canterbury, UK

Project Question

How can graphic design be used to empower millennial women to see themselves as heroes and leaders?

Aim and Objective

The aim of the project was to develop a graphic design solution that challenged the stereotypical representation of millennial women and marginalised genders . By showcasing real-life role models and examples of inspiring heroes and leaders from around the world, I wanted to inspire this community to feel confident and courageous and enable the audience to see themselves as heroes and leaders.

Following research into the relationship that millennial women and marginalised genders have with the defined archetypal roles and characters, I found that the biggest gap between who the audience was and who they aspired to be was in relation to the Hero and Ruler archetypes, particularly the traits of Confidence and Courage.

To develop this project, I researched into the history of feminist protest in graphic design, as well as current websites and organisations that are helping to empower this community. Hélène Cixous said that a “woman must put herself into the text – as into the world and into history – by her own movement.” Therefore, in order to change the narrative, we must write the narrative.

Final Outcome

Herisee is an inclusive and diverse intersectional feminist platform. It provides a bold, engaging and fearless feminist response to the portrayal of gender in mainstream media.

The name is a play on words of ‘Heresy’, an opinion profoundly at odds with what is generally accepted, and ‘Her I See’, as the platform aims to increase the representation of women, trans and non-binary people as heroes and leaders.

It features interviews with inspiring real life role models, articles on heroes and leaders in a variety of industries, and information about empowering projects that support the female and non-binary/gender queer communities.

As well as tackling the serious issues, the website also aimed to have fun by celebrating and ampifying art, fashion, food and lifestyle content that is body positive, diverse and inclusive.

How has your practice developed while studying the MA in Graphic Design with a global cohort?

It has been really enjoyable to be able to exchange ideas and critiques with people from around the world. Having the different creative perspectives and variations in graphic design practice has allowed me to step outside of my comfort zone and experiment with my own work more. I feel I’ve improved so much from where I started and a lot of that has been down to being connected with such a great group of creative people.

When I first started, I was worried whether the time differences and geography would be difficult, but it’s been really easy to reach out to each other with questions and queries. The group has been incredibly supportive of one another and it’s definitely made me enjoy the course. I think the fact that we can’t meet up in person means that we made more of an effort to communicate with each other.

Please follow this external platform link, to view the Final MA Project in full and/or portfolio documentation.

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Tony Clarkson

Shrewsbury, UK

Project Question

Cycling brings many different things to society; how can design tell the story of its diversity and cultural value beyond the stereotypes associated with it?

Aim and Objective

This project has cycling at its centre and the changes that cycling can bring. The aim is to break down the generalised perception of cycling and cyclists and show that it’s not only about fitness, fashion, fads, but people and what they believe in and the struggles they face.

To show through different stories how cycling benefits communities and causes by bringing people together, building confidence and friendships, or delivering a feeling of independence and release, a way to escape or change a situation. To get the full effect of the difference cycling can really make, you need to feel it; you need to connect.

Final Outcome

The outcome is a set of haptic rooms forming an experiential exhibition where graphic design, image, light, sound and smells are layered to recreate different circumstances. The exhibition aims to heighten the senses required to understand unfamiliar situations and conditions faced by cyclists. The concept shows extremes, each room has its own story and a means for visitors to connect with that story and take it home.

Think beyond an exhibition stand – look at using an entire room; floor, ceiling, walls. Make the visitor climb up, lie down, squeeze through spaces—change temperatures and atmospheres; noise, silence, oppression, reaction. Visitors get to feel what it is like to have the adrenaline rush brought on by a long winding descent in the summer air, the heightened senses from inside a protesting crowd, the cold, the heat, the pressures, the sounds, all coming together.

Interaction: Touch-screens, lighting that tracks your movement, exhibits to push through and pull out of the way to enter the room and others to tear and collect into guides to build up an individual scrapbook of events.

Scale: Oversized objects represent the value of the bicycle and the story being told. A change of scale can make things overwhelming and strengthen a message; it can emphasise its importance, whether it is an object, an image or a typographic display – they have the same effect.

Sound and light: What is the effect of different lighting? Combine interactive sounds, visuals, lighting and music to create a feeling. Then change the soundtrack, increase the volume or interrupt the rhythm. Combine the lighting with the sound of the police and voices distorted through a loudhailer; what feelings would follow?

Visual: Each room is different in terms of aesthetics, content and structure but ties into an underlying visual identity connecting everything into a singular event; literature, publicity, exhibition guides and wayfinding. Each room has its own guide for visitors to pick up; colours clearly identify each room.

The interactivity of the rooms is extended through the print, guides and replica artefacts; protest placards, photos, stickers, badges, statements and personal stories. Building up scrapbooks of the exhibition by adding these messages and artefacts means that the visitors complete the guides. The layout structure means there’s no right or wrong way to fill them; the items aren’t numbered like a football album, and there are no captions to follow. It’s not a National Trust treasure hunt. The replica content is there to pick up from the rooms all around the exhibition space.

How has your practice developed while studying the MA in Graphic Design with a global cohort?

The global cohort brings different cultures together. They may only be slight differences, but being exposed to them and other ways of thinking and working helped me experience and develop a more comprehensive design approach beyond the usual confines of my studio.

The structure of this MA means you have to step up, and through it, I have rediscovered the value of collaboration, research and discussion, bringing me even more ways to improve my practice.

Please follow this external platform link, to view the Final MA Project in full and/or portfolio documentation.

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Callum Stewart

Bristol

Project Question

What can be done to minimise the wasted educational potential of young adults living in Bristol?

Aim and Objective

My project has been primarily focused around finding new ways to support university graduates and other young adults to continue pursuing their academic interests and developing their skillsets post-education.

Final Outcome

For my final outcome I ended up designing an autonomous, democratically organised collective focused around group learning in a relaxed, social environment.

The group is a way for people to pool resources together in order to pay for learning and enrichment opportunities. In a nutshell everybody pays into a group pot each month which gives them access to vote on the group’s activities.

Once they’ve paid their monthly contribution, members are able to:

1. Suggest group activities for next month &
2. Vote for their favourite items on last month’s list.

The most popular events as voted for are then organised by core members for the rest of the group to do.

The actual direction of the group is entirely led by its members, one month might see a lecture on geopolitics and the next a woodworking workshop. Broadly our aim each month is to provide activities in three categories – Learning, Support and Enrichment but within those categories the possibilities are essentially endless.

I plan to launch a limited trial version of this project in Bristol shortly after graduation to gauge interest and to try it out in practice.

How has your practice developed while studying the MA in Graphic Design with a global cohort?

Both my confidence and skill as a designer have grown immeasurably since I started on this course.

I have found my voice as a creative that is focused on finding ways to enact social good through my practice.

I would like to thank my many fantastic module tutors for their hard work, dedication and support.

I’d also like to thank my MAGD cohort for making this a fun and memorable two years.

Please follow this external platform link, to view the Final MA Project in full and/or portfolio documentation.

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Alice Marlow

Worcestershire, UK

Project Question

How can graphic design improve the accessibility of board games, creating a more user-friendly experience for players with disabilities?

Aim and Objective

Research shows that a higher percentage of disabled people feel lonely compared with non-disabled people, and a shocking 75% of young adults with a disability report that they are lonely.

One of the main barriers to tackling loneliness is accessibility. How can someone with a disability increase their social interactions if they are physically unable to take part in the day-to-day activities that many of us take for granted?

One social activity that has soared in popularity in recent years is playing board games – and no, I’m not talking about Monopoly. Modern board games such as Ticket to Ride, Pandemic, and many more provide a platform for players to connect and form friendships.

Ensuring hobbies such as board games are more accessible for everybody is one way we can tackle loneliness among people with disabilities. A physical gathering around a board game table is a special, social event that no digital or video game can replicate.

The mental health benefits of playing board games are well documented, from the cognitive benefits of keeping your brain active to the social benefits of playing games with friends. Tabletop games have been proven to combat isolation and as a result reduce feelings of anxiety and depression in adults. We should, therefore, ensure that this hobby is accessible to as many people as possible, and certainly to those who are more vulnerable to poor mental health and feelings of loneliness, such as those with a disability.

Unfortunately, many board games are not published with accessibility in mind, and I therefore chose to address this for my Final MA Project. Rather than design a new game, I wanted to address the lack of accessibility in existing games, so that everyone could feel welcome at the table, no matter the game being played.

Final Outcome

For my final outcome I designed the Board Game Accessibility Kit, an idea born from research conducted among the tabletop gaming community and conversations with industry experts. From my own love of playing board games, I was familiar with frequently used game mechanics and components, and realised that the key to removing accessibility barriers across multiple games was to focus on the universal components that all gamers are familiar with.

Most games are made up of base components that change very little in terms of functionality – a board (or sometimes many tiles that make up a board), and 1cm cubes, often in multiple colours, that represent an in-game resource, monster, or similar.

These simple sounding components present quite the accessibility challenge for anybody who struggles with more dexterity-based games – precise movements are often required to place a cube on a specific area of the board. As a game progresses, the board can quickly become covered in these cubes. It only takes one accidental nudge of the board to disrupt the placement of these cubes and cause confusion for everyone playing. This can turn fun to frustration in a matter of seconds for anybody who struggles with grip, precision, or a tremor.

The kit that I designed comes with magnetic versions of these game components, and tools to help you adapt a range of games to suit your own accessibility needs. A magnetic playmat instantly turns your whole game board magnetic, while smaller adhesive magnets can be fixed to individual tiles or pieces. Barrier tape brings the whole thing together, both protecting the original game components from the harsher adhesive of the magnets, and helping to seamlessly blend the kit in with original game artwork.

At the time of submitting this project, the Board Game Accessibility Kit was poised ready to launch on Kickstarter, a prospect I am hugely excited by.

How has your practice developed while studying the MA in Graphic Design with a global cohort?

Working with so many talented designers from all across the world has absolutely helped me develop my skills and confidence. I have been exposed to many new ways of thinking and creating, and our shared online studio spaces have helped us feel far more connected than I expected from an online course.

Please follow this external platform link, to view the Final MA Project in full and/or portfolio documentation.

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Anna Robinette

Walthamstow, London, UK

Project Question

What is the designer's role in engaging the community with typography and placemaking in Walthamstow?

Aim and Objective

Walthamstow has been recognised as a hub for hundreds of years and has a fascinating history of diverse trades and crafts that people from around the world introduce and develop when they settle here.
Stowe Framework focuses on vernacular typography because it is a power­ful marker of regional identity and has a remarkable ability to capture the character of time and place.
My project aims to engage the Walthamstow community in their typo­graphic environment and to discuss how type influences the way we feel about the content it displays. I aim to highlight the uniformity of corporate advertising, which ignores and subverts local history and tradition, and to collect and document examples of the vanishing symbols of local culture. Other local projects have captured memories through oral history and online archives; Stowe Framework is the first to document typography.

Final Outcome

At the end of eight months, Stowe Framework is just beginning.

ACTIVITIES
To get a thorough understanding of people’s views, I devised activities for the community that include a typography scavenger hunt and art-based creativity that I distributed in groups and schools. The Covid-19 pandemic significantly hampered the primary research within the community, and led to the outcome being a plan for a launch of the activities and website.

WEBSITE & ONLINE TOOLS
A redesigned website includes elements of play where visitors can view project details and its background, engage with the activities, find out event details and explore the project. Maps are integral to the website, showing examples of typography around Walthamstow and locations for the events.

Online, participants can draw their own letter, challenged by different prompts. The results are posted into a gallery and once a threshold for number of letters has been reached, participants can choose to remix letters and distort them. The colour of the letter is decided by the current outside temperature. This tool and function shows how data and community can be merged for satisfying results.

LAUNCH
Stowe Framework would be launched during the E17 Art Trail where people host exhibitions and events on the first weekend of July. A selection of event, such as history and photography walks, would be hosted and include an exhibition at a local gallery, where I would give information about the project and allow visitors to take part in the activities.

TYPEFACE
Walthamstow has been historically industrial, from the London Rubber Company to Walthamstow Film Studios, with sawtooth roofs featured heavily in the skyline. The typeface takes inspiration from this architectural pattern. For my project I have begun to design a new typeface to embody the architectural features, and is summarised as:
“A new variable typeface inspired by the architecture of Walthamstow to embody the innovation powered by the community. Its aesthetics will be geometric to represent the community’s burgeoning awareness of typographic style. It will shift its appearance on weight, width and roundness axes and include the full set of glyphs in Latin and European scripts. It will be designed for eye-catching display type in both print and screen-based media and for free personal use by the community.”

How has your practice developed while studying the MA in Graphic Design with a global cohort?

Please follow this external platform link, to view the Final MA Project in full and/or portfolio documentation.

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Alice Neve

Bordeaux, France

Project Question

How can design be used to help migrant and refugee teenagers in Bordeaux with community integration at school?

Aim and Objective

Bordeaux is perceived as a beautiful, historic and wealthy city. The architecture, history and wine industry make the city very attractive to residents and visitors alike. However, concealed behind the façade of this aesthetically beautiful and apparently affluent place, is a state of crisis in which social services and healthcare are cracking under the pressure of a growing migrant and refugee population. Through research in previous modules, I have pinpointed an area of intervention in the migrant and refugee crisis that I believe could make a huge difference – not just in terms of alleviating the immediate situation, but, in the longer term, by acting as a locus for educating the next generation on the importance of diversity and inclusion within their school community.

The Problem: At present, there is no form of integration support for migrant and refugee teenagers joining the French education system. They arrive on their first day of school, often feeling frightened, isolated and with limited French language skills. The French students already attending the school have a lack of education surrounding diversity within their community and therefore do not understand how to welcome the newcomers into their school.
This leads to a lack of understanding and sympathy towards refugees and migrants living in their society. Also an ignorance towards the importance of having diversity within a community.

The Solution: Creating an inclusive program that involves welcoming and supporting diversity within the French education system. This will be in two parts: a digital design application incorporating a buddy-matching algorithm, and a detailed hard copy reference manual for program leaders and teachers to support the continuing provision of collaborative social and educational opportunities for both French children and newcomers.

Final Outcome

The Réuni program represents a new approach to integrating migrant and refugee children into the French schooling system. The program not only provides a nurturing and supportive educational environment for newcomers but also helps native French children to understand and embrace diversity within their community. réuni aims to make the newcomer feel welcome, understood, and accepted within the school from day one, carefully monitored and encouraged by program leaders who have been selected to organise and oversee the activities within the program. réuni has been designed to be versatile and flexible so that schools can take their own approach depending on resources, facilities, and timetables within the school. Other factors might also argue in favour of varying the approach to workshops and activities such as cultural differences and individual vulnerabilities. réuni is sensitive to the fact that some activities suggested may not be appropriate for certain groupings and situations.

Réuni is divided into two key stages. The first stage is a digital design application that is made up of a questionnaire that the students and potential students can log in to and participate in. They can create a fun continuous line drawn avatar with colourful shapes and choose what their favourite subjects and hobbies are. The matching algorithm then pairs a new student with one that already attends the school, meaning each new student attending the school will have a buddy for support and friendship; to learn from as well as teach. The application can be downloaded for free via the App Store on the QR code on the réuni website.

The manual is a comprehensive guide for the members of staff involved in the program or program leaders. The manual is filled with all the information they will need about how to: welcome and introduce new students to their buddies; design, structure and organise workshops, and ensure adherence to program goals and ethical requirements.

How has your practice developed while studying the MA in Graphic Design with a global cohort?

Having come from a fashion design background, I felt that my experiences within the design industry were fairly focused on one area.
The diverse and inclusive projects, experiences and community on the Graphic Design MA course at Falmouth University has opened my eyes to the possibilities of how I, as a designer can apply my skills to so many industries and sectors, and in the process, have a positive social impact on the projects I work on as well and those within my locality.
I have learnt that studying within an international cohort can provide such rich and diverse perspectives on design, and spark discussions and questions that I would not necessarily ask myself when designing independently.
Throughout the course, I have felt supported, accepted, and included. I am leaving the course more confident within myself and as a graphic designer.

Please follow this external platform link, to view the Final MA Project in full and/or portfolio documentation.

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