We are going to start this second part of the journey of visualizing solutions for a problem in the same way that Delta 7 do with the last idea we had.
And what we thought it could be the final approaching to the drawing.
But when we saw the final piece, we felt something was missing. It was very well divided and easy to follow but it was probably very flat regarding the colour and the scenery itself so we started filling the space up. It was necessary to fill the "blue" with meaning.
The following drawings are some sketches where we tried to discover how to give meaning and colour to the piece.
This one is something we thought it could work. Having background gives it depth and so it could deliver a clearer visual meaning of the piece.
This is what we came up with by merging drawings together:
A visual journey easy to understand and that visualizes different paths or ways that graduates follow after university and with the positive side of showing solutions to these problems in order to make students to understand that this is a work in progress and to succeed it is needed to work earlier than graduation.
The next drawing was the final piece. However, looking at it (and with some feedback), we understood it was difficult to understand, a journey difficult to follow; also the bubbles didn't give meaning as they didn't match with the style.
It was too coloured and that made it hard to see.
The next link is a test we did as an attempt to do a similar work as RSA does but after all it didn't work the same way Delta 7 drawings do.
Having seen all the work done, we needed to deliver the message clearer, easy for the eye and to follow.
We changed the colour style to a less aggressive one, set some arrows up to define the different paths one can chose.
Now, rather than explain this journey (we will do it in other post), we would like to invite you to click on it to enlarge the image and contemplate it. Follow what is going on and feel if it works.
Final piece as a response to Delta 7 brief. Unika team.
We brainstormed the topic and many concerns came out for all of us. However, the main ones were:
1.) Unemployment - Specifically graduate unemployment, the expectation that we will get a design-related job straight after graduating and how this may not be the case. - Having to compete for employment - What are the main causes? How do we plan to overcome it?
2.) Climate Change - Consequences of climate change on a social and environmental level - What causes it? Why is it controversial for some people? - What can we do about it?
3.) Consumerism - Concerns about our current materialistic culture. - Why can this be a bad thing? - Reliance on material objects for happiness - The idea of 'retail therapy' or 'the more things I have, the happier I will be'
With three main ideas, we decided to go a bit further with them to choose the one we are more concerned about.
Narrowing it down, we chose unemployment because it is an issue that could potentially affect not only to everyone in our group but also to all of those currently studying their degree now. Therefore, we decided to focus on graduate unemployment and looked at the problems that students could encounter and not only focused on our field but on all degrees and specializations.
As for starting point for the research, several graduates, both successful and unsuccessful in finding employment and in the design and non-design fields, were interviewed. Many of them found very difficult to find a job and most of them are not in their desired one.
The reason why we used interviews was because that could get us closer to the issue and have information from the first sources.
One example of the interviews with one of the graduates:
Name: male (the name is not shown to protect the interviewed identity)
Occupation: Employed
University: Bournemouth
Subject: Advertising
and Communications
Age: 22
Graduated: 2011
•How
long did it take until you found a job?
About
1 year
•How
many jobs did you apply for? Over
100
•What
did you have to do when you applied?
For a lot of jobs such as Vodafone, I had to take a
Maths test which was unrelated to the job. It was very itand even A-Level Maths students didn’t know most of the answers which
made it impossible to pass. How can they hire someone who is good at Maths but
not marketing?
•Are
you happy with you job?
Not
really. It’s not exactly what I wanted to do but they wanted me straight away.
It’s a tough industry and they could have replace me.
•Do
you feel equal to your co-workers?
No,
they look at me like a boy and blame everything on me because I am young. They
cannot accept that they have made mistakes. It’s easy to blame they young.
Here there are other comments from people interviewed, we also asked for advice so we could have some ideas for the solutions.
Other part of our research lead us to know statistics about unemployment rates of graduates in different fields:
Curiously we found out that our degree has one of the highest unemployment rate and is one of the lowest paid.
We also found out that:
More than one in three recent graduates
are employed in a lower skilled job compared to one in four in 2001.
Recent graduates are more likely to work
in a lower skilled job than ten years ago, according to the latest figures out
today.
Medicine and science graduates had the
highest median earnings at £21.29 per hour and those with an arts degree had
the lowest median earnings at £12.06 - almost 21% lower than the average for
all graduates.
A graduate aged 21 has the same chance of
being unemployed as a 16-year-old school leaver with one GCSE.
Job's market is changing - with more
demand for graduates and skilled workers.
The weak economy might have inspired more
students to start up their own businesses - with a steady upward
entrepreneurial trend in self-employment. This is now approaching 5% of
university leavers - up from 3% in the middle of the last decade.
These facts gave us some ideas and lead us to do this useful mind-map with the information we needed to visualize in the final piece.
Our inspiration came after seeing different cacartoonists' works such Mike Luckovich, Tome Toles or Rob Rogers among other cartoonists...
Credit: Mike Luckovich http://misterlax.wordpress.com/2009/02/10/a-smart-move-in-bad-times/
Credit: Source: Rob Rogers, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 2003 http://donaldearlcollins.com/2010/06/14/not-finding-work/
The style that we decided to work with was cartoons because they are easy to understand by everyone as people can relate it, beinga bit comical makes it even more catchy and what is more, this way it does not take attention away from the message.
Our aim is to make people more aware of the high rate of unemployment (which is 7.8 in September according to the National statistics). Also get the graduates to stand at.
This video from the RSA (Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce) gave us some ideas of how to show the problem and possible solution in an attractive way.
RSA Animate: Dan Pink http://www.cognitivemedia.co.uk/digital/rsa-animate-dan-pink-drive.html
This is a full panoramic view of one example of the RSA Animate (made by Cognitive Media). What the company CognitiveMedia does here, gave us the idea of doing not only the print for the project but also a video animation where showing the problem plus the solution in a different form, always using our own style of drawing.
First sketches of what we think of the problem:
Building very hard a future but not getting anywhere.
What after graduating?
The hope of a future of success.
Trying to get something... anything!
IDEAS FOR FINAL OUTCOME
These two last examples show with more detail what we would like to explain at the end.
We could collect together all of the quotes from the interviews that we have done and separate them into three categories:
1. People about to graduate soon or recently graduated from university.
2. Unemployed or in a temporary job / job they are not happy with.
3.Employed and in a job they are happy with for the present.
Find a visual metaphor that would 'fit' with these categories. For example:
If we chose to male an image like this: The 'island' in the background could represent the security of being in full time education, blank boxes could contain quotes about our concerns for the future. Use quotes from the first category. The 'water' in the middle could represent the gap some of us could experience between graduation and employment. The blank boxes would describe in detail people's personal experiences with unemployment / unsatisfactory jobs. Use quotes from the second category. The 'island' in the foreground would represent the security of finally being in a position of permanent employment. This part would be the section of the poster where viewers could read in detail the experiences of the people who have 'made it' in their area. They would read the advice and experiences of the quotes in this part of the poster and create their own solutions. Use quotes from employed graduates. If we did this the actual graphic would have room for more illustrations of individual graduates and their quotes. Another possible way of showing this could be:
The left 'cliff' could represent people in the first category (starting out on their journey into the 'real world'). The illustrations in this half could have quotes from the interviews we have taken from other recent / soon to be graduates. The middle section - showing quotes from unemployed graduates in speech bubbles as they 'cross the bridge' - use quotes that mention obstacles, problems along the way, anxieties, frustrations, advice from people who have been through this. We could also add the the middle section - show people struggling to 'hang on' - use quotes from people who have been discouraged. Also show the journey made by people who have had a relatively easy time finding employment - they could be shown in the graphic with jet-packs / planes / quotes explaining why they easily found employment - viewers could take these quotes as advice. The right 'cliff' would have some final quotes in speech clouds: advice from the interviewees and an encouraging message.
The next example shows a mix of the previous ideas, setting the steps from the beginning (the problem), the work towards the solution (alternatives) and the final step which is the solution itself.
The next step is organize all the ideas and look for the solution of the problem to put them then, altogether in order to make the panoramic view of the whole content.
Thursday, 25 October 2012
We are delighted to introduce you to our little baby:
UNIKA is not just a design agency. UNIKA is the effort of a group of high standard design students capable of exceed your expectations with their fresh way of thinking because the team at UNIKA understand how important that is for you and want for you the best experience.
Here at UNIKA we specialise in visual communication via Photography, 2D design and typography. By doing this we already create a contrast between existing design agencies through creativity and professionalism.
By having international backgrounds, we as a team understand the markets across the globe by sheer experience. This works as an advantage for us and our clients. It is important that we understand the clients business and design requirements so that we can meet the clients needs.
Our strength at UNIKA is that each individual in our team specializes in different aspects of the design industry that allows our agency to target multiple areas making sure that we maintain a good relationship with the client every step of the way.
UNIKA is all about challenging ourselves and producing pieces that we are 100% confident with. We blend creative passion, strategic insight and most importantly, the power of great and effective ideas.
Our motivation/style: Each designer has their own individual creative Identity by incorporating the "client" requirements
Reasons: The way typography and visual imagery can relate together in a commutative style. Communicating ideas through visual imagery, a chance to experiment and produce exciting outcomes. The idea of design the serves a very specific purpose.
Welcome to our team.
Note: We are not a professional design agency. We are only students doing projects as real as possible in order to reach the best understanding of how works the industry we are about to join.
