Moving Pictures Brief For RSA Animation

What is the RSA Awards

This semester for our Design Focus module our project was to follow one of the RSA briefs given in this year’s RSA competition. We were to research into our chosen brief and follow the guidelines to create our final outcome, something that if we wanted to could be entered into the RSA Design Awards.

The RSA Design awards have been running since 1924 and are 'a global curriculum and competition for emerging designers' "We challenge students and recent graduates to tackle pressing social, environmental and economic issues through design thinking." Winners are rewarded with cash prizes, paid industry placements, complementary RSA Fellowships and a range of other benefits to kick-start their careers. they work together with their sponsors, universities and big companies to create the briefs each year.

There were 8 briefs set out on the website, each relating to a pressing matter in society. They were fairly open and could be interpreted to make multiple outcomes as long as it highlighted the issue stated. Each brief also provided a Toolkit full of sources and ideas relevant. To enter the competition we had to have a final outcome matching your chosen brief, 1 A3 Big idea summary (hero board) and to accompany this 10 A3 pdf pages of supporting material.

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Initial Ideas

Use the PDF scroller above to read through all RSA briefs.

Idea 1- Fair Play

Design or re-design a consumer toy and its product packaging to eliminate waste, using circular design principles.
After researching circular design and existing toys with excess packaging; I came up with the idea of repackaging McDonalds HappyMeals. They are aimed at children and include a plastic toy that usually gets thrown away after a few uses.

MMy idea was to have a cardboard box and instead of including a plastic toy have cut-outs included on the box that could be used to make a toy, for example, a cardboard car you could build or cardboard VR goggles.
Information on recycling and waste, including the overuse of single-use plastics, could be printed on the box.

The tool kits available were information on circular design, popular toys in the market and sustainable packaging that is available. I would use these and complete further research into previous HappyMeal designs and toys, I’d look into anything similar to my idea that could be a potential competitor, as well as finding out parents views on current HappyMeals and what they thought of my idea.

Idea 2- Eat, Share, Live

Design an inclusive, accessible and multigenerational kitchen space or kitchen component that works for all ages as well as for disabled and non-disabled family members, so they can prepare, cook and serve food, entertain, engage in hobbies or work and enjoy life together.
My idea for this is a kitchen component of a moving chair that works similarly to a stairlift.

Stairlifts help the elderly and the disabled up and downstairs. My idea is a similar chair that manoeuvres the user around the kitchen by the worktops. Elderly struggle cooking in the kitchen as it means they are stood up for long periods of time and using a chair means getting on and off and moving it every time you need something, the same goes for the disabled who also have the possible issue of getting a wheelchair round the kitchen. The chair would move around the worktop, sit at the table and even raise and lower to reach cupboards. This way even children can safely help with cooking rather than standing on a stool.

My research method would be the same as the previous brief- look into potential competitors see if anything like this exists and if it works, ask family’s, elders, disabled and children if they think this idea would work and if they have any other struggles in the kitchen. This idea has a very wide target audience as anyone could use it.

Idea 3- Wearable Intelligence

Develop a design solution that utilises “advanced textiles” (fabric enhanced by new technologies) to improve the wellbeing or quality of people’s lives.
I researched what new smart textiles were available to give me inspiration and came across a device that monitors insulin levels. I thought this could be implemented into something more subtle for the user to wear.

Diabetics and people who need to monitor their insulin levels need to carry around quite a bit of equipment that is very obvious and draws attention to them. Having a piece of wearable intelligence that monitors this for them would make it easier for them to get on with day to day life. The technology that exists to measure insulin can be placed into a fabric, either a t-shirt or a sock, perhaps a piece of jewellery. The technology would notify the user when insulin levels were incorrect or blood flow was limited and they need to take action.

Toolkits provided are a design guide for smart materials, a website for a lab creating smart materials and an insight into the future of wearables. I would look into the technology I found and if anyone had any other designs for a similar use or something that is possibly already on the market. Also, look into forums or Facebook pages to see if there is a demand for something like this. There is a lot of potential development with this idea as it could also be used for other health conditions such as high blood pressure or heart rate problems.

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Finalised Idea

The idea I settled on was to follow brief 8, the moving pictures brief. after working with some of my other ideas, I lost interest in them. So I sat with Kerry and we decided to re-work what I had and plan a new idea and outcome.

The moving pictures brief was to create an animation to follow an audio piece. Kerry had the idea that I created my own audio piece as long as it still linked to the topics. The Audio I took inspiration from was Tiffany Dufu speaking about the everyday pressure women face in trying to achieve it all. I interpreted the everyday pressures and looked at the pressures school children face and the lead to mental health.

My animation will be about mental health. Targeted at school children and teachers to be shown in classes or assemblies. The aim is to remove the stigma around mental health and highlights the struggles and pressures of school and life at that age.

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