Design Process This document presents my journey to Don’t Use Me, from the initial idea to the final magazine. It reviews all stages of the project: brief, ideas, research, concept development, testing and evaluation.
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Introduction Over the last 60 years plastic has become central lives and mankind has subjected the planet to a tsunami of plastic waste. Marine litter and in particular plastic waste, is a global problem. The vast majority of plastic waste is destined for landfill sites which limits the impact through ‘containment’ however does not solve the problem. A significant proportion of plastic gets into the water course and eventually ends up in the oceans. As might be expected the plastic waste on the coastlines is more prevalent around more populated coastal areas. However, once the plastic waste enters the oceans it is influenced by global currents that distribute it around the world. Plastic pollution is having a significant environmental impact particularly on marine life and coastlines. There are two major impacts on marine ecosystems; Entanglement and Ingestion.
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Mapping the problem
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Research Five garbage islands in the Oceans There is so much pollution in some areas of the Oceans that have been formed five floating garbage islands that rotate lazily on themselves, growing day by day. There are two in the Pacific, two in the Atlantic and one in the Indian Ocean: they are called “Trash Vortex“, the gyres of garbage, and are composed of 90% plastic, a material never completely biodegradable. The floating waste of biological origin, in fact, are spontaneously subjected to biodegradation while the plastic is photodegradable, disintegrating into smaller and smaller pieces until to the size of the polymers that compose it, whose biodegradation is very difficult. For example, the Indian Ocean Trash Vortex consists mostly of white plastic pellets of 3-5 mm in diameter. These five islands appear as a kind of soup of billions of crumbs of plastic, inside of which can not survive neither fish or plankton; furthermore, the plastics act as a sort of chemical sponge containing Persistent Organic Pollutants, or POPs, chemicals with toxic properties, very resistant to decomposition.
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The Largest Gyre The largest gyre in the world is that in the north Pacific, called “Pacific Trash Vortex”, or also Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Its extension is not precisely known: estimates range from 700,000 km² to more than 10 million km² (from an area larger than of the Iberian Peninsula to a wider area of the surface of the United States), with a depth of 30 meters and a total amount of only plastics in a total of 3.5 million of tons. The accumulation has been formed since the 50s, due to the action of ocean current called the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre, with a particular movement in a clockwise spiral, which allows to floating waste to congregate with each other.
North Pacific Gyre
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Animals and plastic pollution Plastic pollution affects more than 300 animal species in the world; in the seas of Planet, there are three kilos of plastic for every kilo of algae and 61% of the plastic measures less than one millimetre. The flotation of such particles, which apparently look like zooplankton, tricks the jellyfish that eat them, causing the introduction into the food chain. Also marine mammals, from whales to dolphins, eat those little plastic pieces mistaking them for squid, remaining poisoned to death. Even the sea turtles are cheated: recently, in Hawaii, researchers found one with over 1000 pieces of plastics in its stomach. Every year 1 million of sea birds and 100.000 mammals and sea turtles die from plastic pollution.
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Bioplastic Bioplastics are plastics derived from renewable biomass sources, such as vegetable fats and oils, corn starch, pea starch or microbiota. Comparing to common plastics, such as fossil-fuel plastics, bioplastic produce less greenhouse gas. Some, but not all, bioplastics are designed to biodegrade. Biodegradable bioplastics can break down in either anaerobic or aerobic environments, depending on how they are manufactured. There is a variety of materials that bioplastics can be composed of, including: starches, cellulose, or other biopolymers. Some common applications of bioplastics are packaging materials, dining utensils, food packaging, and insulation. Applications: Packaging, Food-services, Agriculture/horticulture, Consumer electronics, Automotive, Consumer goods and household appliances
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Types of Bioplastics: Dubbed polylactic acid, or PLA: is clear in colour and costs manufacturers about 20% more to use than petroleum based plastic. Polyhydroxyalkanoate, or PHA: biodegrades more easily but is more than double the price of regular plastic. Poly-3-hydroxybutyrate (PHB): is a polyester produced by certain bacteria processing glucose, corn starch or wastewater. Its characteristics are similar to those of the petroplastic polypropylene. PHB is distinguished primarily by its physical characteristics. It produces transparent film at a melting point higher than 130 degrees Celsius, and is biodegradable without residue. Both bioplastics are made of fermented corn sugar, and both come with a major benefit: if disposed of properly, they won’t stick around in landfills for thousands of years.
How Bioplastic degrade? Bioplastics can anaerobically degrade. With this information, we understand that bioplastic cannot degrade in normal conditions in the environment.
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Recycling Bioplastic: There are some concerns that bioplastics can damage existing recycling projects. Packaging such as HDPE milk bottles and PET water and soft drinks bottles is easily identified and hence setting up a recycling infrastructure has been quite successful in many parts of the world, although only 27% of all plastics actually get recycled. However, plastics like PET do not mix with PLA, yielding unusable recycled PET if consumers fail to distinguish the two in their sorting. The problem could be overcome by ensuring distinctive bottle types or by investing in suitable sorting technology. However, the first route is unreliable, and the second costly. Conclusion about bioplastic as an alternative of petroleum plastic. Bioplastic is a nice option if can degrade in normal environment, however it takes time to degrade. With this, the best solution to avoid the consumption of plastic.
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How long does rubbish take to degrade when disposed in the environment?
Plastic Bottles: 400 to 500 years, but they never completely degrade
Plastic bags: 1 to 20 years
Glass Bottles: more than 600 years
Food Packing: 1 to 5 months
Cans: 200 to 400 years
Paper bags: 6 weeks to 5 months
Paper towels: 3 months
Chewingum: 5 years
Cigarette butts: 1 to 3 years
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Strategic project plan schedule A strategic project plan imposes a structure on the project and prevents you from drifting aimlessly for long periods of time. The central purpose of the project plan is to establish a contract with yourself that specifies the time commitment you are making to the project. Timeline including deadlines for research/analysis, concept development, concept testing, final design solutions and critical reflection.
July Week 1
Week 2
Week 3
August Week 4
Week 1
Week 2
Week 3
September Week 4
Week 1
Week 2
Research/analysis Concept development Concept testing Final design solution Critical Reflection Printing
Dead line 12 of September
Defining the theme
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The design objectives The proposition for the project is to develop a fresh solution and provide a powerful and effective campaign, which will make people awareness about significantly reducing plastic pollution in the environment. Greenpeace, WWF, Surfride Foundation are some organisations that we can say that will be our competitors because they create campaigns to communicate environmental issues and to tray to make people think about the problem. However we should consider to make a partnership with those organisation well stablished in the marketing environment. The great difference between Don’t Use Me from our competitor is that we will focus our effort in plastic dumped in the environment, mainly in the ocean. In addition, our organisation will sell tog bags, T-shirts, Metal bottles, and other products to help raise funds to continue our work. Another thing that differentiate us is the environment that we are going to communicate. The main communication will be via Internet, However posters can be used to communicate out of the virtual world.
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The target audience/market In the beginning, the main target audience will be people over 18 of all genders that consumes products made my plastic. This includes all social classes. However, in the future, some campaigns can be aimed to educate children to start thinking about the environment and what we can do to make our planet a better place to live. To start we are going to put our focus on the United Kingdom. However, the problem that our company will talk is a global issue, so it is planed for a near future to give some efforts to communicate our ideas to all countries in the world.
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Competitors As Don’t Use Me is the mains campaign of a charity organisation that is dedicated to protecting and improving the environment. We believe that other organisations with the same characteristic is not our competitor, but our partners to fight for the same cause. Organisation like Greenpeace, WWF, Surfride Foundation is doing a great job communicating how plastic is dangerous to our planet life as we can see their campaigns.
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SWOT analysis Strengths: Selling products to help to raise funds for the charity will help to make the organisation more visible and not depending much of donation. In addition another strength is the communication will be mainly via internet decreasing the need of sponsors. Weaknesses: Being a new charity group, people might not trust a new charity, however this can be avoid making partnership with existent groups like WWF and Greenpeace. Opportunities: There are many opportunities to make people get involved online with the main project of the charity. Website, Facebook and twitter should be the main channel to gathering people to get involved with the plastic in the ocean cause. Threats: The main threat is not have sufficient funds to maintain the foundation. Because people would prefer donate to already existent organisation. However, we can make partnership with others groups to avoid being out of resources.
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The design elements Logotype design Idea The idea was to make a logo that grabs people attention like a warning signal. I started researching all kind of warning signal The combination of black and yellow get people attention because it is hight associated with dangerous signal like radiation risk, electric shock risk, etcetera. In addition, it communicates very clearly that we should have attention and avoid use plastic.
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Logotype design development Warning signals was created to reflect the campaign objectives. However it was not powerful enough. The Best thing was to develop something much more simple that could communicate in a very efficient way.
Dengerous
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Naming and logo design Don’t Use Me name came from the idea that people should avoid use plastic because based on my research, plastic tracts chemicals that can be harmful for all life in our planet. Furthermore, it is the product, plastic bag and plastic bottle telling that they should not be used. The geometric sans-serif typeface Gotham Black was used in order to get people attention. It is a powerful typeface legible from distance. Both symbol of the dead fish in a bag and in a plastic bottle was created to communicate that plastic are killing millions of marine animals and will be used to support campaigns. In addition, it was created to make a direct link with our organisation and our believes and ideas.
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Colour testing In order to test the colour selected, different versions of posters was developed. The blue version was to make a link with ocean and the magenta was created to get people attention. However the best colour was the previews black and yellow. This result was achieved after consulting and testing with the target audience.
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Pattern Development A pattern was created to be an element of support of our website. And also to be applied in some items in our store. It communicates our brand, and the idea behind our organisation.
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Design Development First ideas The first idea was developed to be a viral campaign against the consumption of plastic products. It was created to attack supermarket and products directly.
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Final idea. The final idea was developed from sketches and tested with the target audience. The creation of a charity that will help to fight against plastic dumped in our oceans.
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Critical Reflection Introduction One of the most debated issue in our world is about what we could do to help the environment that we live. With this sought I choose the theme: problems caused by plastic in our planet. HelpLine is a design project developed for the RSA Student Design Awards 2012 for the brief “Good Journey�. It was aimed to give assistance to people during their travels by making their journey easier for London Underground customers.
The Research Different methods of research was applied in this project. In order to start thinking and analysing the scenario, a mind map was developed. I started my research trying o find what happen with plastic objects when not recycled. I found that most of plastic that are not properly recycled end in one of the five garbage island in the ocean. Those vortex of floating plastic are know as the five gyres. The biggest one has proximately the size of United States and its located in the North Pacific Ocean. The plastic pollution affects more than three hundred animal species in the world by ingestion, suffocation or poisoning. In the seas of Planet, there are three kilos of plastic for every kilo of algae and sixty one per cent of the plastic measures less than one millimetre. The flotation of such particles, which
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apparently look like zooplankton, tricks the jellyfish that eat them, causing the introduction into the food chain. Also marine mammals, from whales to dolphins, eat those little plastic pieces mistaking them for squid, remaining poisoned to death. The second step of my research was trying to find a solution for the problem. I found alternatives to normal plastic like biodegraded plastic made by vegetable oils that is called Bioplastic. However I could see that this new material is not a solution once I figured out that this plastic needs a different kind of way to be recycled, as only degrade without a presence of oxygen. Paper was not a good alternative to plastic, because it pollutes the water and some paper packaging use plastic inside to avoid the paper absorb the liquid. In addition, I used methods of visual exploration, such as sketches, storyboards and diagrams to organise my thoughts and research findings in order to base my project on a solid research to formulate clear strategic objectives for the project. Concluding my research, I decided to aimed my project to change people behaves, making then avoid using plastic, or when needed, make them absolutely sure that the plastic will be disposed in a proper recycle place.
Design Concept With the analyse of my research, I could understand that plastic is something dangerous for our environment. With this, I decided to make a campaign to communicate and change people behaves to avoid the consumption of products made
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by plastic. The main idea was to create an aggressive viral campaign by putting stickers on plastic bottles and plastic bags with leaflets in many supermarkets. In addition, supermarket doors and walls would be sprayed with our logo and message. Furthermore, it was planed to create different signs to put in the streets. A online store and website would be created to sell a kit to make people embrace the cause and spray in different places. Yellow and black was chosen as the colour for my campaign because reminds warning signals. However, after looking different organisations like Greenpeace, WWF, Surfrider Foundation and interviewing people, the idea changed in order to not be so aggressive and to not stimulate vandalism. The new idea concerns in create a new organisation that deals with environmental issue with the focus on plastic in the ocean. This organisation will start online in partnership with other organisations. The differential is that people can buy objects to instead of just donate. Those objects when sold will help us to raise funds for our organisation to continue educating people about plastic. The idea is make people understand that they should avoid using plastic, but in case that it is needed to use, people should make sure that the plastic will be recycled and not duped in the ocean.
Design Development Understanding that the new organisation should make people understand that they should avoid plastic, the name Don’t Use Me! was chosen because when added the simple of a plastic bottle and a
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plastic bag it sounds that they are saying to people to not using themselves. To symbolise that marine animals are dying because of plastic in the ocean, the symbol with a dead fish in a bottle and in a plastic bag was created. Those simples will support our campaign and be another element of our visual communication. Due to my research, the best environment to start communicate with people about the issue is over the Internet via website, Tweeter, Facebook and Youtube in the future. However, once people start getting involved we should expand to offline media campaign. According to the colour theory, all colour has a meaning. The yellow and black was selected because it is well used in warn signals, being the best combination to make people aware of the dangerous of plastic duped in our oceans.
Evaluation I believe that I managed to successfully develop the concept for a new organisation. However, its implementation could be further improved. It is understandable that this project could have an offline communication. However to start the charity, and avoid having problems with money. The best option was to put our focus on online communication. During the process of the concept development, I have challenged myself by trying to do build a visual communication that would be different from other organisations. Aimed in simple graphic
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communication instead usage of pictures. With that, I could develop a different kind or organisation that communicates in a different way. Another challenge was to rebuild the project from a viral campaign to a charity. However it was the best choose to do. If I could do this project again, I would put more efforts to interview more people to get feedbacks and ideas for the charity.
Conclusion In general, I find my project successful. I believe that Don’t Use Me charity has a high potential be implemented in a real environment and would communicate many many people helping a lot of marine animals and decreasing the amount of garbage dumped in our oceans. In addition, this project was developed as a design solution to problems outlined by the project brief and investigated through various methods of research.
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