5.2.1 - Public Space, Public Voice
Is it too loud?
We were given a brief to create a campaign in groups (Me, Rihanna, Katie & Dania) that would raise awareness for neurodiversity in public spaces. We need to find out ways that could make public spaces safer or more inviting for others.
These were Katie's initial ideas, and this is what helped us build our idea and start to brainstorm different ideas that would best fit the demographic. We believed that for our specific campaign, our demographic would be a younger age group, and we would use that to inspire our idea of a quiet room/sensory room. As this brief was not a 'real' brief, we were told that we would have 'unlimited funds' to be able to broaden our ideas and have no limits. When talking about our ideas, we thought about things like the location of where a sensory room could be, and we came up with things like universities, shopping centres and libraries. This is because these are very public areas that also could become very crowded or overwhelming for some people. As we continued to look into this idea, we started to think about the types of things that would be included inside one of these rooms, and we came up with things like fidget toys, dim lighting, beanbags, as well as possible soundproofing on/in the walls or doors that would prevent loud noises that could affect someone.
During the design process, we looked into things that represent neurodiversity, and these were things like colours and what they mean. For example, we used the colours yellow, orange, green, pink and blue. These colours were chosen as there are studies that say that these colours are some of the calming and appealing colours that don't have negative side effects. When choosing our colours we also thought it would be better to choose more pastel colours as it reduces sensory overload and lessens the risk of anxiety.
Connotations of each colours:
- Yellow - happiness, optimism, and sunshine
- Orange - enthusiasm, warmth, creativity, and fun
- Green - nature, health, hope, and growth
- Pink - compassion, care, nurturing, calmness and innocence
- Blue - calmness, trust, stability, and intelligence
