Girls
and
Growing Up
Anupriya Arvind Studio One | PGDPD Graphic Design S1101102 | Batch 2013
For my mom and dad... my driving forces, my inspirations, my best critiques, my confidants and my greatest strengths.
This publication has been typeset in: Page Headers : Ubuntu Bold | 40pt Side headers : Ubuntu Bold | 9pt Body Text : Ubuntu Regular | 8pt Labels : Ubuntu Italic | 7.5pt
Guide Profile :
Tarun Deep Girdher Graphic Design, NID Senior Faculty Head, Printing Labs. www.tarundg@nid.edu | http://www.behance. net/tarundeep | http://tarunonlife. wordpress.com/
Photocredits for pages 35 - 40 | Mani Maran. Photocredits for pages 9, 11, 12, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20 | Jasleen Thethi.
Contents
01
02
Let’s begin at the beginning...
The second phase of the beginning...
04 06 10 Format Fun!
Ground Work!
Images of the Brainstorming Board
Personas and Scenarios
Design Criteria
07 08 13 Information Architecture
20 22 24 18 29 26 & 19 What’s in a type?
Pencil Talks...
Working on the layout...
Structure & Layout
35 The puberty project, in print...
15 41 Content Development...
The Puberty Project in the news!
Illustration Blocking...
Refining Illustrations...
01
Let’s begin @ the beginning...
What, why and when? Personal experiences The birth of an idea Light bulb moments
Based on my close interactions with the resident counselors of schools back in my hometown, I realised that the counselors often had a problem in diversifying their counseling session material to other students who were shy of approaching them. These counseling sessions usually happened via word of mouth and there was no literature available in a format that could be helpful to other students as well. The counselors felt that if something tangible was created which not only translated their literature and experiences but was also easily accessible to all students who could not approach them, that would make their effort more successful.
Re-looking at the project; Taking a step back : This communication guide will be a PILOT project to many more of such periodical guides that can be developed on its basis. It will set the guidelines, content, tone, colors and illustration style for the future on this type of communication.
In their experiences over the past years, these counselors have observed that most of the students who approached them were girls and needed advice regarding puberty related issues. My project aims at creating a tangible output which translates the informal literature present with school counselors and effectively addresses puberty related problems in school going girls.
However, after detailed research and speaking with more people from the target group and my guide, I decided to take a more generalised approach and create a new format with existing data, rather than working alongside with the school counselors to write the information. Also, my target group was centred around my hometown, Jamshedpur, but I thought of covering all cities and towns which were like Jamshedpur so that the project would have a wider focus group and more students could benefit from it. This proposition was a tall order because I had to break new ground with a completely new target group for a sensitive topic. Having to look for new content which would suit the project, re-tweak and edit it needed time and restricted my final deliverable. So, I decided to re-define the design brief.
02 Re-defining Re-grouping Re-looking The step forward
Project Brief : (Re-defined) A self help, first hand, communication guide on puberty; for school going girls between the ages of 12-14 years; belonging to A-tier and B-tier cities.
The second phase of the beginning... When we begin a design project we are either given a brief or we make our own. According to the given brief we set our guidelines and begin our research. But there often comes a time in the research that certain aspects of the project are revealed which are not covered in the brief, so it needs to be re-defined. My initial project was to develop a self help handbook for girls with issues on puberty. Also, my target group was a few schools in my hometown. In my jury it was correctly pointed out designing any solution involves so much of time and other expenses that taking such a focused target group would not serve the purpose. I was asked to widen the target group to more cities. This made sense as I later figured out that issues that were by girls in a city like Jamshedpur wouldn’t be very different for a girl in Ahmedabad. It was then that I thought of visiting a few schools here and in particular Nirma VidyaVihar. That’s when I re-looked at my target audience and decided to include all major A tier and B tier cities.
Also, research showed that defining a communication format like a ‘book, guide etc’ was restricting my approach towards doing something new as a designer. So I re defined my project as developing a ‘graphic intervention for girls with puberty issues’. Now this opens up my avenues to look at various communication styles and formats. Content Categories (tentative) Health – Physical, emotional, Hygiene, medical advice Dictionary – Important terms FAQs – quick answers for the commonest and simplest of questions that girls have Myths – all misconceptions a nd doubts that girls have, will be cleared. Special Section – Detailed information on any one topic Look up – Links to helpful websites, online journals, videos and interviews. Personal notes – space to write, draw and basically let out!
The Puberty Project // page 3
Ground Work!
04 Research Analysis Understanding
Secondary and Primary Research : Brain mapping Brain boards Information collection Interviews with the target group, NGOs teachers, school counselors, parents Looking at existing literature (books & web) and research on existing material Demographic profiling Traveling to cities : Jamshedpur, Ranchi, Dhanbad, Bokaro, Kanpur, Lucknow, Bhubaneshwar
Problem identification
Recap : Re-defining the brief Looking at a larger scope of the project Editing Content Analysing the information collected
The next step forward : Content development from TARSHI Red Book Editing content based on current context. Developing Personas Building Scenarios Design Criteria
Behind -thescenes
The Puberty Project // page 5
06 Images of working with data, research and analysis
07
Personas and Scenarios
Who are they? How do they live? When and why do they need help?
Persona building is about getting into the mind set of the target audience. Taking 5 diverse case studies, and developing their personas helped get a better grip on the problems that the target group had. Shruti; 12 years | Lives in a joint conservative family with 12 people including servants. Her father is a businessman and her mother is a housewife. Financially, she is well off but has a bit of an over protected life. Priya; 13 years | She is a single child. Her father has a transferable job and her mother works in a bank. She is independent, a little lonely and has been taking care of herself for a long time. Ankita; 14 years | She is a late bloomer. Her father is in service and her mother is a housewife taking care of an ailing grandfather. She has an elder brother who is about to finish school and leave for college.
Shreya; 13 years | She is a twin and has a brother. Her father runs a store just below their house. Her mother is a housewife. Her brother helps their father run the shop after school for some extra pocket money however, Shreya is not encouraged to do so. She is expected to help her mother with housework. Jyoti; just turned 12 years | She lives with her father and younger brother. Her mother passed away a couple of years ago. Her father is a factory worker. They are financially weak. Jyoti has been taking care of her father and brother like a mom since she was little. She is very mature for her age. As obvious in these personas, these girls need some handy, tangible, economical, readily available and easily accessible communicative material that they could read, keep and share. The next step is creating the design criteria for the final deliverable in the form of keywords/reasons which would act as a guide for the deliverable.
Design Criteria
08 Guidelines and keywords for the deliverable
Cost effective :
Pilot Project :
Looking into simple and easy physical formats; easy to use and keep; hold and fold.
Looking into less post production costs for NGOs & schools to get it printed and distributed inhouse; less involvement of manual labor for end product assemblage.
First of it’s kind; Beginning of a series; Ready reckoner; Set templates; Ready format.
Self help :
Easy accessibility :
Authentic; self guided improvement of information and knowledge; reliable and does not need validation and inputs from outsiders.
In terms of availability and content – looking at end deliverable dissemination avenues (schools & NGOs); looking at developing simple content that can be accessed (read) anywhere and anytime; creating folding mechanisms so that it can be read in open and private; during and after schools, tuition classes or at home.
Handy :
Simple and easy to read.
First hand information : Looking at overview of the information; quick to read and understand; gists; less of details; not overwhelming.
The next step is looking at how the information would flow from one category to another; how the information would read and be interpreted; styles of presenting the information and the physical look and feel of the publication.
Photo Credits | Jasleen Thethi The Puberty Project // page 9
Format fun!
2
10 Look, Size, Feel, Paper, Printing, Structure & Physical format.
2. Generally Turkish fan folds are a used as maps but using an extra
1
crease I tried making a standie out of it.
Getting my hands ‘dirty’ (metaphorically) and working with paper including all paper mechanisms, folds, cuts etc was a lot of fun! The beauty of doing dirty prototypes is that one doesn’t have to worry about the neatness, feasibility of technique, size or type of paper. It’s just about thinking of fun ideas/concepts and trying them out with paper.
3. This format uses a combination of
Note: The prototypes created are
first bit, which encloses all the other
not to scale.
bits like a cover so this resembles a
3
folds to create an interesting format. The first face is a half- square fold, which then opens into a triangle fold, which slowly opens as a zig – zag fold in body and finally ends as the initial half-square fold. It keeps certain part of the text private and the rest, easy to read. 4. In this format, the paper is folded
4
in a zig-zag format except for the
collapsible book.
While working with paper I had to keep in mind the key words in my design criteria – first – hand, handy, cost effective, easy accessibility. I also had to keep in mind that since paper is a two dimensional medium, the format in itself should be interactive yet easy to handle and keep.
5. This fold uses paper a standing calendar which opens up into a simple sheet and collapses back into a calendar. This keeps the guide interesting yet private. 6. In this prototype the paper can be manipulated into a temp. folder where there is space for an insert like a pamphlet or a booklet. Multi
1. This is a two tab system using
purpose this one!
paper to open in two directions. A fun way to interact with paper and also helps in understanding hierarchy of information.
5
However, none of these seemed right to take forward, so I kept working on making prototypes.
6
The scale of all the prototypes is 1:1. All measurements are in inches. Paper is Offset paper (size) | 36 x 23. Size of booklet | 23 x 18. One offset sheet can produce 2 copies.
The final physical format... This is the final format is a collapsible booklet and opens up into a poster, with separate faces as section/chapter headers.
The first finalised prototype is the Envelope fold. It has three folds to enclose itself into an envelope. It creates four copies from one standard offset sheet. Though an interesting format, it seemed a wee bit complicated for the target group to handle, hence the second exploration was finalised. Final format (version of map fold)
The final one is a different version of the basic map fold. It uses half of the offset paper and is folded into eight faces. It gives two copies from one offset sheet. The USP of this format is that it can be opened and folded to view any face as a section and can be slipped into a notebook or diary or opened up, partially or completely, into a poster.
Envelope fold 1
Envelope fold 2
Also, I wanted an easy to make format which used the least resources and reduced extra costs, hence I avoided any gluing, stapling or fancy cutting. Only various types of foldings were explored in the format. The reason for using offset paper is simple. Since the printing has to be cost effective yet in large numbers, so offset printing is the best solution. The Puberty Project // page 11
The folding mechanism
Turn clockwise for better a look.
The Puberty Project // page 12
13 Structure, Mapping info, Hierarchy & Content selection
Information architecture
Image from | TARSHI Yellow Book Photo credits | Anupriya Arvind
Content Adapted from.
Select Reading List : The Orange book The Yellow Book The Red Book The Blue Book (TARSHI Books) Beti kare sawaal (Eklavya Publications) Surakshit Prasav The Universal Childbirth Picture Book Educators Manual on Social Issues Other books read were written by foreign authors and e-books. The Puberty Project // page 14
15 Adaptation of content; Section headers; Mapping information; Layout
Content development... This aspect of the project would deal with the content – The way it runs through the booklet, the content categories and the tone of voice of the information. My project scope earlier had a deep involvement with the content and the way it would develop but later on as the project scope increased to involve A- tier and B-tier cities all across the nation, being too involved seemed a bit ambitious. Therefore I had to step back and re-look at my project and turn to better validated sources for content.
Tone of voice : The way the information is read and understood dictates the way the content is being interpreted by the target group. Keeping that in mind, the available content had to be adapted as per the following keywords - simple; informative; light reading; explaining yet subtle; comforting; assuring; conversing.
In my research, I had already come across the TARSHI series of books pertaining to similar issues and another look at them seemed feasible for me to pick up the RED book by TARSHI as a base for content development. However this content had to be adapted and updated to suit the context that I had in mind for the project. As mentioned in an earlier post, the final content sections are: Front cover : Name of the booklet, tentatively titled - Girls, Growing Up and Beyond.
Introduction : Talks about what
puberty is and how all girls of this age go through the same issues. Why should you read this? : Deals with why as a girl should you be reading this booklet and how it would help you. Health (Our bodies & Growing Up) : This section talks about the physical and emotional changes of the body. Dictionary (Word Power) : This lists all the important terms and new words (used in the content) that girls of this age come across. FAQs (Frequently asked questions) : Quick and simple answers for the basic questions that girls of this age might have. Special Section (Your first Period) : Detailed information on what menstruation is, how and why does it happen and how to deal with it. Health and Hygiene : Talks about how to take care of your body, nutrition and cleanliness while going through puberty. Look up (back cover) : Has a summary of the project, links and information about TARSHI and credits.
The Puberty Project // page 16
Mapping the information into section headers The Puberty Project // page 17
The structure and layout... After making the physical format and formulating the information architecture, I put all the content in the final structure - the various sections and the navigation of the booklet. (The colors and arrows in the picture in the previous spread are purely for reference) Viewing the booklet is simple as it opens and closes in just four folds with the information being presented in layers.
2. The third and fourth folds open the entire booklet to show sections on physical and emotional changes, health, hygiene, questions and a dictionary for difficult words. 3. The booklet is then closed to reveal the last page, which is the back cover, showing references for further reading. After the first viewing, the structure allows the reader to treat each section as one and read it as a whole, without opening the entire book making it handy and easy to read without getting too much notice.
1. The first layer opens into why to go through this booklet, moving onto the characters presenting the how’s and why’s of puberty which then leads to the special section on Menstruation.
18 Guidelines and keywords for the deliverable
To the right is text place in the final
physical format. A few minor tweakings here and there, this is what the content in the booklet finally looks like. The next step is placing illustrations in the given space. For this, various options for blocking the spaces with the illustrations have to be sketched. Next step is blocking spaces in the layout for illustrations. The road ahead is type selection and illustration style exploration, after which illustration blocking will be looked at.
19 Guidelines and keywords for the deliverable
The complete layout and structure (step 1)
Top Choices :
What’s - in a type?
20 Looking at typefaces; context and content; texture of content
Header - Slimbo Bold | 30pt ; Body text | Akzidenz Grotesk CE light | 9pt | leading 14pt Header - Ubuntu | 30pt ; Body text – Warnock Pro light | 9.5pt | leading - 14pt Header - Baskerville Old Face | 30pt ; Body text - Akzidenz Grotesk CE light | 10pt | leading - 15pt
Final : Header - Belta regular | 50 pt | kerning 75 ; Body text - Ubuntu | 9.5pt | leading - 14pt
Looking at typefaces that would go along with information architecture and tone of voice was the next step. After sifting through loads of fonts ranging from serifs to slab serifs, character typefaces and finally boiled down to three styles with headers and body text with varying leading and font size. After taking it back to the target group, Ubuntu | 9.5pt | 14pt seemed perfect for the body text and for the Headers I thought of taking a typeface with more character and a little informal so I chose Belta regular | 50pt | 75 kerning. More on the next page.
Type options : The options for type mentioned in the earlier page have been listed on the right. [The information is typeset in the typefaces chosen. An extract from the booklet below]. Slimbo Bold with Akzidenz Grotesk CE light
Our Bodies
A
s you grow up, your body begins to change in size
and shape. You may also begin to have mood swings like
Ubuntu Regular with Warnock Pro Light
being over-sensitive, emotional and irritated at times. These changes begin around the age of 11 or 12 years. They may also happen earlier or later. They happen because of changes in the natural chemicals of your body called *hormones. The changes could be physical or emotional.
Baskerville Old Face with Akzidenz Grotesk CE light The Puberty Project // page 21
22 Illustration exploration, building narrative, style exploration
Illustration with scenario
Character illustrations
Pencil talks... Finally that part of the project is here that I enjoy the most; giving a free reign to my hand and my pencil to create magic on paper! Yeah, sounds a little too poetic but illustrating is an area that challenges and excites me as a designer. For this project I had already gone through tons and tons of references for illustration styles and was also looking at the context so that the visuals represent the text in an interesting way. Going back to the keywords for the project and the tone of voice, I re-read the text and tried to weave the illustrations around it so that they don’t just become supporting structures but blend themselves into the narrative. Then came the next big questions - What is the narrative of
this booklet? Would it be divided in specific sections? Would it be one entire thing or maybe a series of questions leading to answers or having a separate narrative for every section?
After some thought and deliberation, I decided to let the text dictate every section and the illustrations seamlessly put together everything. Simply put, I thought of creating a few characters (visually) and illustrate them in various situations as per the text. Since the text is not a personal narrative, I did not want these characters to conspicuously have names and back stories. So I tried creating girls of varying body types, heights and physical features and
Illustrations with context
indirectly put them in various situations as the text demands. To give a very brief idea, the section called ‘Our Bodies’ speaks of how a girl can be of any background, lifestyle, physical composure, they all go through puberty and face similar things and how often they are confused and unable to be very clear about it. Hence the illustration shows a set of girls with different looks, personalities and undergoing various emotions.
The Puberty Project // page 23
Illustration blocking... After mapping out the layout structure and simultaneously trying out illustrations, my guide advised me to begin blocking illustrations in the given layout so that the booklet in its entirety could start coming about. I wanted a functional yet non formal feel for the booklet so I tried keeping the illustrations like line art doodles with text supporting them alongside. Cohesively bringing the text and artwork together is the most difficult and challenging aspect of graphic design and the road wasn’t easy for me either. My guide posed another interesting challenge for me and asked me to execute the illustration blocking via hand. In retrospect being objective about it, on one hand though it was a very long and tough process because even the slightest mistake meant having to illustrate the blocking again and again, on the other, it gave me a better understanding of space and text ratio and how to balance images in a layout with the text. To the right, are initial explorations of blocking in rough pencil sketches.
24 Creating physical spaces for illustration; image v/s text
After exploring many blocking options, the speech bubble option was chosen to be worked on, so I did yet another round of illustration blocking prototypes with finer, detailed illustrations.
The Puberty Project // page 25
Refining illustrations...
26 Looking at lineart; line consistency, style, weight, finishing.
A stack of beautiful art paper, a micron 0.4 fine-tip pen, waterproof ink, lots of gateway sheets, a light table and hot cups of coffee with some Joy Division playing in the background, all this helped with the final illustration set. The Puberty Project // page 27
For the digital explorations, I began with refining the illustration style. Also, I decided to tackle one section at a time and began with the Health and Hygiene section. I thought of taking color as a criteria and digitally create the illustrations in the color that would best represent that section. For example the ‘Health and Hygiene’ section in green. However I realised attaching color, to every section, which already has too many cultural and social connotations, would add a layer of complexity to the child’s understanding, hence I took a call to go along with black and white illustrations only. The next step is blending the illustrations and the chalked out text as a layout.
Sneak peek into layout explorations
The Puberty Project // page 28
Working on the layout...
After a few discussions with my guide, I realised that the text was too blocky and was not getting complimented by the illustrations, so it had to be worked on further.
29 Grid sytems; dynamic; flow; hierarchy; corelation; association; relevance.
The illustration of the junk food was out of context. Also, the girl on the right without the complete figure was not suitable as it did not have a frame to support it. The sun’s position had to be changed. The side note on top was looking weird, so it had to be pushed down. The spread was static and had no hierarchy. It was a little boring and unnatural. Therefore it had to be re looked at with a fresh perspective. The next spread shows the final layout.
The Puberty Project // page 30
Spreads for WHY SHOULD YOU READ THIS? and WHAT IS PUBERTY?
The Puberty Project // page 31
Spreads for YOUR FIRST PERIOD and FAQs
The Puberty Project // page 32
Spreads for OUR BODIES, GROWING UP and WORD POWER
The Puberty Project // page 33
Cover stories... Explorations for title
After having completed the other sections of the booklet, I now worked towards the cover and back cover of the booklet. First I illustrated all the characters, as if they were introducing themselves to the readers, spread out across the cover and back cover. Also, the back cover has a quick summary of this booklet, a little about TARSHI and other details of this project. Earlier, I was looking for an
appropriate title for the booklet. It cannot be named ‘The Puberty Project’ as one of the keywords of the project is subtle. So one option was Girls, Growing up and Beyond, which I later summarized into ‘Girls and Growing up’. While working on the look of the title
girls growing AND
I thought that ‘Girls and Growing’ would also work as well as the previous one. After having worked on many versions, the one below was chosen as the final cover and back cover. For more, do visit the blog.
The Puberty Project | Student Designer - Anupriya Arvind | Semester 2 | PG Graphics 2011 Guide - Tarun Deep Girdher | National Institute of Design www.thepubertyproject.wordpress.com
The content in this booklet is adapted from TARSHI’s ‘Red Book’. TARSHI (Talking About Reproductive and Health Issues) is an NGO (Non-Governmental Organisation) which works to create awareness on sexual and reproductive problems in people’s lives, helping them to live with dignity, freedom from fear and any other health issues. They have come up with many books and articles to share this information with people, so to know more, visit www.tarshi.org You can also call their helpline number 91 - 11 - 2431 2229
Front and back cover
The Puberty Project // page 34
The puberty project, in print...
35 Photoshoot of the final booklet.
The Puberty Project // page 36
The Puberty Project // page 37
The Puberty Project // page 38
The Puberty Project // page 39
“This project is a dedication to every girl who was ridiculed, made feel ashamed, bore the brunt of insensitive jokes, felt confused and uncertain and never thought that puberty could ever be discussed or talked about. Puberty is not only something that should be spoken about, but acknowledged, appreciated and celebrated. My hope is that this project becomes a beginning to this and much more.�
When we conclude a project,
needed it, spoon-fed me when
from Menstrupedia, the former
and something as extensive,
that deemed necessary and even
for their content and the latter
detailed and exhaustive as this
reprimanded me when nothing
for her encouragement and help;
project, a ton of names come
else worked. It has been such a
all the public support, all the
rushing to mind, infact more
wonderful learning experience
people who have been reading
than we can remember at a
being under his tutelege.
the blog, the media coverage, it
time. So it becomes imperative
Thankyou to my school, teachers
felt so good to get acknowledged
to acknowledge everyone who
and all other schools in various
and recognised.
has been associated with it in the
cities who helped me in my
smallest possible way.
research; also my friends who
Lastly, my family who have
shared their experiences with
been through thick and thin
For this project, my guide Tarun
me at every step of the project;
of this entire process with me,
Deep Girdher has been my pillar
my batchmates for their words
every distress call, every estatic
of strength. He has guided me
of wisdom, taking time to give
feeling and every thoughtful
brilliantly, been there at every
me feedback when most needed;
query, nothing would be possible
step, gave me my space when I
TARSHI Books and Aditi Gupta
without your love and support. The Puberty Project // page 40
41 The Puberty Project in the news ~ Ahmedabad Mirror, DNA, Facebook, Menstrupedia
For more on the project: http://www.behance. net/anupriyarvind https://www.facebook. com/anupriya.arvind/ photos_albums
http://www.tarshi.net/ https://www.facebook. com/tarshi.ngo
http://thepubertyproject. wordpress.com/