Animal Care Project

Following on from my last post, about the final project in design, I will now look in more detail at our project and what our design proposal was.

We decided to use the animal shelter, Animal Care as our base for our ideas. This is the business we would link with the residents.

Initial Ideas

Initially we thought we should try and link Animal care, with schools and improve children’s wellbeing by taking animals to the schools and allowing the children to interact with the animals.

We wanted to talk to the shelter about what sorts of animals would be suitable for this. As well as if they would want people coming to the shelter or if the animals should go to the people.

We needed to look around the shelter and see what sort of scale it was as well as if it was suitable to have people come to the shelter.

Research:

After doing our initial secondary research, we went to visit Animal care. It was much easier than we thought, as it is vey close to Lancaster City centre. This meant a quick bus ride for us.

We then looked at all the animals and the facilities the shelter had. We spoke to staff about our initial ideas.

It was so beneficial for us to do, as without us doing this we would have gone down the children and animals route. Which we discovered may not be the best idea.

This lead us to think about other ideas, and what sort of Lancashire residents wellbeing we could improve with the use of animals.

We talked with the head of the animals at the shelter, and Michael, a man who deals with the link between the shelter and the public.

He was a great source of information. By talking to him and thinking about our ideas we came up with the idea of Retirement homes and Universities as being a good way of linking animal care to Lancashire residents.

We found out the the shelter has stay in animals that can never be adopted, these animals are used to seeing people and are what the shelter use for sponsorship animals. Having both cats and dogs, we decided these would be perfect for the job of therapy animals.

We then talked to UCUM and the retirement homes to see if this would be something they would be interested in.

After getting their views we confirmed our ideas, and began to come up with scheme ideas, and plans.

Without doing this research we would not have ended up with the ideas we did, this showed us just how important it was, and that you can not assume ideas will work.

Design Schemes:

We wanted to brand our ideas, and have a sort of business that we could in theory show people and become the link between Animal Care and the university or retirement home.

This lead to ‘Paws, Pals and Positivity’ being created. Our brand, with the slogan ‘Cuddle Your Cares Away’. We felt this very simply showed what we were trying to do.

Our design proposal consisted of two Schemes, similar in design but changing small elements so that each was tailored to the business we wanted the to work with.

At this point we decided the work up more so each person knew what they were doing, it was amazing how much work we got done and how well we worked as a team. It was a really great experience, and showed that from a very basic idea we were able to come up with a well thought out idea.

The basic idea was the the Retirement Home Scheme would involve the cats from Animal care going to the home and interacting with the residents. We slip the scheme into phases to allow us to clearly illustrate how our plan would work.

In terms of benefits, we worked it around mental wellbeing in the initial stages, then residents would be able to go to the shelter in phase three if they wished. Allowing physical wellbeing to be improved too.

For our UCUM Scheme, we based this more around dogs, as the students and teachers would be younger and be able to be more active with the dogs. We wanted to use the dogs to reduce stress during exam periods and stressful times of the year, for both students and staff.

We gave a very detailed description of both of our schemes and the benefits to all parties including animal care in our 5000 word report. As well as in our presentation. The presentation slides for the schemes show how we broke the ideas down.

 

Advertising:

We then wanted to go a bit further in our project. As we had already completed the brief, but we thought by showing the kinds of branding we would use, and mock websites would show what we were thinking.  It was a way of showing the design and marketing skills we had learnt too.

Reflection:

Upon reflection of our project, i felt we really learnt how to work as a group, and we did this very well. It for me, gave a really good idea of what i had to come over the next few years at Lancaster. I am very excited for this, as i really enjoyed doing this project. Looking at animal care and being able to come up with design ideas, and branding ideas was really enjoyable, it was challenging as the brief was quite open. However, this allowed us to run with the idea, and explore different ideas.

I think we have all learnt from this as well, as ironically making the mistake at the begging of the project helped us in the long run. It showed us what we should not do and what we therefore, needed to do. We most defiantly learnt from these mistakes, and I feel corrected them, which allowed us to produce a well rounded project.

It seems strange that the first year of design is over already.

However, this final project was i feel the best, it incorporated all the skills we had learnt, such as the ethnography methods we used in out last project, as well as the idea generation in the first few weeks of Design at Lancaster.

I greatly look forward to what Design has to offer over the next few years, and I am sure I will be pushed just like I have been this year.

Final Design Project

Over the last term in First Year Design, we have been very busy doing our final project.

It takes up the whole last term, and in a sense is our exam as there is no written exam in design, just course work, so this in effect takes its place.

The Brief:

The project brief was set, in groups of 5 people, we were to look at a business or a service in Lancashire and come up with a design proposal that would increase the health and wellbeing of Lancashire residents.

It was a fairly open brief, allowing us to use all of the design skills we had learned over the year into one project and show what we could do.

The project had to consist of a 5000 word group report and a 15 minute presentation, with questions being asked at the end, meaning this was going to be a very in depth project which had to be clearly thought out in all stages, showing well done research and a design proposal that clearly showed how it would benefit Lancashire residents and their wellbeing.

Our Project Ideas:

For our project I joined with 4 other girls who I had come to know over the year. We sat down and began to discuss our options and what we each felt would be interesting to work on. There were sections of project ideas to give us a little bit of guidance that the whole workshop group had created together.

Initially we thought about the topic of transportation and cycling, and felt it was a good idea to link with health and wellbeing as there are physical health advantages to doing more exercise. We were thinking up design ideas such as the Boris Bike scheme in London. But upon reflection, we realised we were going about the project the wrong way.

The brief stated we must link it with a business or service.  We thought about bike shops and such, but nobody had a clear idea of what we would be setting out to do.

The other error we had made was coming up with the idea we wanted to propose without doing any research to back it up. We had narrowed our ideas to early on. Something we had learned not to do in the first few weeks of design.

Luckily we realised our mistakes and decided cycling was not what we wanted to do.

This lead to a mass brainstorm from all our team members. I thought this is more like what design should be about, everyone became more animated and interested in the project as a whole.

This lead to the agreement that we would look into animal therapy and animal shelters in Lancashire.

This time we did not narrow our ideas, everyone sat around the table doing secondary research into things such as the benefits animals have on people in the areas such as mental wellbeing. I also called up animal shelters around Lancaster and set up visits, this meant we could conduct some primary research to help us build up our design idea. Also by visiting the shelter before contacting services and business such as schools and care homes it would allow us to see if the project was feasible. Then we could work to link it with specific areas of the Lancashire residents.

To help give our selves some guidance when talking to the animal shelter staff, we thought up some initial ideas of what we thought may work. However, unlike the cycling idea we did not limit our selves to just one. We wanted to uses these basic ideas as a talking point with the staff. With the aim of hearing their views on them, which would therefore allow us to adapt and change these ideas into ones that would work.

I think this clearly  shows the importance of idea generation when doing a large project like this. As if we had not really sat down and thought about what our ideas were and how we would execute them, we could have ended up with a project that was not completed to our full capability and having a piece of work that did not correctly fit the brief.

Design Ethnography

What is Design Ethnography?

In Design we have been looking at the meaning of Design Ethnography and the tools in which we use to complete it.

Ethnography is fieldwork; observing people in their natural environment. Therefore, Design Ethnography is a method of understanding, what the designers do in order to know the experience people will have with the products or services they design. This is a very important part of design, as it gives you the opportunity to witness behavioral patterns and see beyond the preconceptions which they may have had previous to the research.

I found this very interesting, especially all the different methods.  One of the most interesting was the Participant Observation. This is where you take part in the research, allowing you to experience the emotions and feelings the users will have when using the product or service.

Using this in the field.

We were then set the task of trying out some methods, one being Participant Observation. My group and I went to a food store on campus and took turn trying to use the service with a physical impairment. Such as restricted or lack of vision, others tried restricted use of limbs. This gave us the opportunity to understand what it is like for people with these impairments (not just watching them use the service), but actually experience what it is like ourselves. It allows you to have a greater level of empathy for the users, which as a designer is important when designing as we must consider all types of users. Having done this mini experiment, we developed it in a slightly different direction, this was when the workshop task was set.

Workshop task.

In the workshop we were set a task to look at an experience of a service on campus. As a group we looked at a milkshake bar, the brief asked us to make a short video showing the user experience. This required planning, and then the shoot of the video along with a bit of editing to make it interesting and engaging to watch. I think the most interesting thing about this project was not the execution, but watching what all the other groups had made and how different each video was. We all had the same brief, yet every single video was different. If you would like to watch some of the videos our teams produced the links are at the bottom. 

Goburrito Video Link

Fylde Bar Video Link

LICA 100

When taking Design at Lancaster or any LICA subject for that matter you take a unit called LICA 100 – Modernism in the Arts. This covers all the arts, design, fine art, film and theatre. It is like the history of art, as you look at different movements throughout history. This is a good opportunity to allow you to broaden your knowledge across the arts. This is interesting as you see how different time periods affect different sections of the arts, or how closely linked they are to each other.

This unit covers such an extensive time period; in one of the two week’s lectures you get a whirlwind tour of a different time period or movement, such as World War II, relation and influence on the arts.  Then in the second, you get a more in-depth view, into say how theatre was affected during these war years, or about the design movement Bauhaus in Germany. So, not only are you learning more about events that have influenced design, you are learning about the way these movements are linked. I found this can be very useful, as you consider their relationship when talking about design. It is quite challenging also as it pushes you out of your comfort zone. I personally have never studied theatre or music in depth, but now I have had the opportunity to do so. It can be challenging and you do have to work hard in order to truly understand.

At the start of this unit we talked about what ‘The Arts’ means and whether all the arts are individual disciplines or all one of the same. I felt to begin with I was very much convinced that they were all very different, as how could you say for example, theatre and design or music and fine art are the same? Well, they may not be the same, but they are very much interlinked. I personally have enjoyed this discovery and constantly find my view of this subject to change, because I find I learn something new that will sway my view.

While taking LICA 100 we have a weekly seminar with a mix of people taking this course. This is a unique opportunity to work with people from a range of subjects, while all having a common interest. During these seminars we look at the week’s lectures and discuss them in greater detail, sometime we have debates about topics we have covered. Recently we talked about whether computers can create art, and therefore what defines art. This was a very interesting topic that everyone got involved in, some with very strong views on the matter. I find that taking LICA 100 has given me a wider appreciation for the arts as a whole.