Jazmine Smith

‘helping hands’ is a campaign designed to evoke emotion and prompt realisation from audience members on how they can support others, and how they can reach out for support. I chose to focus my project on the theme of support as I felt like the majority of people I know put on a brave face and don’t reach out when they are struggling. This was supported through research as more than half of my participants stated that they would not reach out if they needed help.

I asked my participants to create hand-written messages on how they would ask for support, and how they would give support to someone-else. These messages shaped the rest of my campaign. These were used as a key element as I felt the words written by real people would translate across as raw, authentic and relatable to the audience. This is because these hand-written text messages represent the human transaction of giving and receiving support in a conversation, and I wanted to emphasise this through my design style. This was done by scanning all of the design research kits to keep the original handwriting of the responses, and using them throughout my outcomes.

My primary outcome was a motion piece, that was created to further visualise this conversation. The pace of the conversation was to emulate the real life pace of a heart-to-heart discussion, dynamic, further supported by rain sound-effects to evoke emotion responses from the audience. The intention of the animation was to provide language to the audience on how they could reach out to others, as well as prompting them to do so.

Watch full video at www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-stBEkM5Fw

Pictured above is an exhibition mockup of how the animation is intended to be displayed. Similar to the LUME (Melbourne), projections would be casted around an enclosed space, creating an immersive experience. Decals would be placed on certain walls and the floor to encourage the audience to engage by writing their own messages and start their own conversation.

The website was created as a supporting outcome to the exhibition & motion design. The aim of the website was to provide people with the knowledge and resources to attain support easily. The design needed to be simple and easy to use so that could be used by a wide audience range, regardless of technological capabilities.

Posters were also created as a supporting outcome to the exhibition. The aim of these posters were to spread awareness and prompt realisation to audience members, letting them its okay to reach out for help and to check up on loved ones.