The Brief
Briefly read each of the articles below and choose which article you want to research. Then, choose a target audience from the following; school children, refugee children, or the middle-aged working class. From there, create an engaging infographic using the article you chose. Push yourself out of your comfort zone, your final product can be any size or item you wish, but should appeal to the audience you chose.
The Goal
For this project, I chose an article detailing the mental health crises in India. Due to the nature of the article, I decided it would be best to make my target audience the middle-aged working class in India. After some thought, I decided to make my infographic a small flyer. I knew that Indian culture still maintained a large stigma around mental health, so I felt that a small, discreet flyer would have more success than a brochure or pamphlet. I also thought a smaller flyer would be easier to print and carry for distribution. After establishing that, my main goal was to keep the infographic simple enough to fit well on a small piece of paper, but still engage the target audience.
Research
First I combed through the article I chose, picking out any relevant details and information. Then I did some research on Peer Support itself, a topic that the article mentioned extensively. After that, for the sake of the infographic I decided to branch out a bit and looked at more overarching information concerning the mental health crises in India.
Ideation
At first, my concept started off very text-heavy. I knew I didn't have to worry about it too much since India has a literacy rate over 80%, but after some drafting, I felt that I needed to add more visuals to break it up. So I switched gears towards more visual shapes reminiscent of popular Indian designs. I eventually settled on using the Buta as the core of my design.
Digital Drafts
After fleshing out a couple of concepts digitally, I fully committed to the Buta and began work to stylize the design in a way that it was still recognizable, but simple enough for a small flyer. I also tried to keep my text short and legible and add small visuals to break up the text. My biggest concern in this phase was that the smaller details would easily get lost, especially on a smaller piece of paper. So I spent a lot of time making small revisions on placement and type.
Final
After several critiques, I finished with a final product possessing more visuals and a far more legible typeface than when I started. For the sake of simplicity and distribution, I also chose to keep the final product in black and white. I felt that color would overcomplicate it, and make the printing process harder. I am very proud of this piece because it was one of the first times I pushed myself to design for an audience outside of the Western sphere of influence.
