Internal Collab - crit feedback

Concept

an ad campaign (for The Case for Her) to remove the stigma around periods, particularly with trans men and non-binary people (everybody bleeds?) and accompanying gender-neutral packaging to make trans men and non-binary people comfortable buying sanitary products

Feedback

• The puns we have chosen work well
• Go with the flow - favourite
• Womenstruate etc - emphasise men e.g. put it in red
• Issues with taking photos of people is finding transgender/non-binary models as it would be rude to represent them with cisgender people
• Could show the ideas in a visual concept
• Don't have to use people
• Using objects would make the campaign more open to interpretation
• What tools are used during the changing phases? e.g. surgery
• For transgender etc could combine sanitary with things used by men e.g. shavers, cologne
• Talk to transgender / non-binary people and get their opinion
• Puns aren't offensive - they bring humour in a good way
• Bez Hall - non-binary at LAU

Recommended photographer - a.dgill. Photographs objects in a stylized way:

Internal Collab - chosen concept ideas

Emma and I employed the same process that creative advertising use when creating a campaign.

Challenge:

The challenge is to remove the stigma around menstration

Research Insight:

Menstration affects not only women

Target Audience:

Educated everyone

Design inclusive towards transgender men / non binary

Strategy

Make people see mensuration is normal, while making transgender / non binary people feel included and unashamed

Proposition: 

Everybody bleeds

We came up with our own ideas surrounding the concept.

Chosen concepts idealized for crit

Internal Collab - LGBT representation in design

Emma and I decided to look into LGBT representation in graphic design, with the emphasis on transgender and non binary people as opposed to gay people as menstruation doesn't really affect them.

Subtle but strong LGBT designs 

—

Much of queer history has occurred behind closed doors, outside of polite company, in the smoky darkness of speakeasies. That’s not so much the case these days, but we gays haven’t totally abandoned the demure approach. With shifting genders, a whole spectrum of orientations and androgyny all in the mix, ambiguity tends to be part of the package, and this can come across in design. Whether your design is speaking to a varied audience or simply doesn’t require any extra frills to declare its orientation, there can be a dynamic power in keeping people guessing.

LGBT designs that break tradition—Most gay liberation movers and shakers probably weren’t trying to be pioneers— they were just trying to be themselves and live their lives in an authentic way. But a little pioneering comes with the territory when growing up in a culture that is predominantly heteronormative—you have to break the mold. Similarly, an nontraditional design approach will appeal to people who have had to forego tradition in their own lives.
 

We decided to look at the flags used to represent LGBT people as the use of colour and symbolism in there is really strong. The original flag was the rainbow and has been redesigned to include the black and brown for people of colour and pink white and blue for the trans flag.

inclusive LGBT flag

agender

genderfluid

genderqueer

trans

non binary

We thought that we may able to use the colours from these flags in our eventual outcomes, however our aim was avoid gendered colours such as blue or pink, and these are the colours contained in the trans flag. We do not want to choose a certain gender out of these to represent as we are trying to be inclusive.

Internal Collab - Ideas after research

• Bold / eye-catch design (contrast the norm)
• Make it like buying toothpaste (similar to bathroom product packaging)
• Unapologetic as to what is in the box
• Using tag from campaign
• Not too obvious so people do not want to double bag etc
• Superior Men - would use periods for bragging rights
• How long is yours?
• Myth / Superstition / Religion
• India - Don't touch the pickle
• Chhaupadi - women banned to huts based on a myth
• Diversity / Inclusivity / Inersectional Feminism
• Social Change / Group Effort
• Tampon Tax
• Designing for Trans men
• Not comfortable buying overly feminine product
• Gender neutral design
• Dispenser design to hold sanitary products to be distributed through university

Concepts:

• 1) Campaign & Packaging for Trans Men & Non Binary
• Gender neutral
• Somewhat clinical
• Educational campaign
• 2) Campaign & Packaging for Trans Men & Non Binary
• Bold - colour based
• Contrast current designs e.g. black applicators
• Educational campaign
• Campaign - bold in information
• Packaging - discrete in information
• Normalising Periods
• Everyday senarios: Want a cuppa? Want a pad?
• Period Poverty
• Chhaupadi
• Small and hidden
• Discrete packaging for a heat pad
• Biology Based
• Teaching it as a bodily function
• You bleed like you breath

Max - Further logo development

I chose to develop onwards logo 1 instead of logo 2, as the feedback from it was positive. I added some type to the logo, the hierarchy of the type is important to the overall composition of the logo. Initially, I planned to have all of the type in a serif typeface to uphold the feeling of tradition Max wants to portray. However, due to the simplistic lines in the icon the serif typeface did not fit. Instead, I adjusted an existing typeface to round the corners of the letters, which matched the round edges of the lines. The serif typeface came in the type that describes Max's job role. This is inkeeping with the traditional look the client requires.

As Max wished I added an eagle to the logo, however I thought that the lines in the sky made the logo feel too overcrowded. I instead chose to represent the sky in a simpler way. Creating an arch, with a circle placed into it to represent the sun made the logo look cleaner. In the further developments I included contour lines to the mountain to make it appear more 3D, then removed these and added a snow cap to the mountain. This looked better, so added a fill to the sun and the snow cap, and made the eagle bigger in the sky.

Internal Collab - concept primary research

As Emma and myself are cisgender, we do not know what it is like to buy sanitary products as a male or fluid/non-binary presenting individual. From our own experience, we have bought sanitary products and tried to be discrete about the process, but as females, this is more the norm. For transgender and non-binary people, this is likely to be far more difficult as they present as male/no gender, so it will not be expected by the person serving them, and others that see them buying or carrying or even using the sanitary products. 

In order to find out what it is really like to buy sanitary products as a trans/non-binary individual and to gain their input into the design of our outcome, we reached out to them using an open call. I posted this on Leeds Uni Tickets, which is a group I am a member of where people sell tickets and post in a discussion. I thought that a page with a lot of members would possibly be able to help Emma and I out. 

Emma and I devised a questionnaire that would help to inform our design and provide the most helpful outcome to trans men/non-binary people. To formulate these questions we thought about what we would like to get out of this experience and what questions would aid us best in the creation of our project.

•How people would want the design to look

•What information should be presented

•How do trans etc feel about buying sanitary products

1. Would you like to be kept anonymous?

2. Are you transgender or non-binary?

3. Do you have a period or have you had one in the past?

4. Do you think there is a stigma around periods?

5. Do you think this stigma affects trans and non-binary people more? Why?

6. Do you ever feel uncomfortable buying sanitary products? Please state why?

7. What would make you feel more comfortable when buying these products?

8. Do you feel the packaging design and marketing of these sanitary products is exclusive to cisgender women? Why?

9. How do you think the packaging design and marketing could be changed so that it is more inclusive?  

10. How could we make the design of the packaging for a sanitary product something you would feel comfortable buying? What features would it have?

11. What steps do you think should be taken to educate people on trans/non binary people experiencing periods? 

12. Any other thoughts or personal experiences you would like to give us on the subject would be appreciated! 

Internal Collab - collaborator research

Internal Collab - period adverts (TV)

Mooncup "Period drama"

Moon cup's clever play on words is the theme for their advertisement. The advert consists of a couple riding on a horse to an undisclosed destination, dressed as people would be in a period drama. The woman on the horse is grimacing through the video and holding her abdomen, obviously uncomfortable and in pain. The advert continues in this way until the end, where the couple stop at a petrol station where the man enters and attempts to buy the right kind of sanitary products, inferring that the woman is on her period. The products he holds up are unbranded and generic with an emphasis on feminity, and he struggles to pick between the two. The end of the advert shows a slogan "have a period without the drama". This is used for the advertisement of mooncup's menstrual cups. The aim of mooncup is to reduce the amount of waste produced by single use sanitary products used by millions of women every month.

'The drama of periods mentioned is intended to refer to the ‘drama’ of throwaway sanitary products only- for our environment  and health. It is no way intended for use in belittling the very real and at times ‘dramatic’ experiences and symptoms that some of us experience in relation to our periods.'

HelloFlo "The Camp Gyno"

HelloFlo is a subscription service that provides care packages to menstruating women. The packages are advertised here through the story of a girl at camp who gets her first period before any of the other girls. She then designates herself the expert, or "camp gyno" and places herself in situations where she is educating the other girls on their periods, putting them through boot camp training and shouting at them to stop complaining when they are in pain from their periods. The other girls at the camp then stop coming to her for advice, and she finds out it is because the girls are recieving care packages from HelloFlo.

"Touch the pickle"

This Indian advert around menstruation bases itself on the Indian superstition that periods are taboo. Similarly to the Nepali tradition of Chhaupadi which I researched earlier in the project, the girls are confined and not allowed to touch things for fear of cursing and contamination. The most common used analogy is that girls on their periods are not allowed to touch the pickle jar for fear that the pickles will go rotten. In this advert, a girl is seen touching a jar inside her home. Her nan exclaims 'she touched the pickle!' the advert continues with the girl carrying on with everyday activities such as tennis, where a crowd of older women are celebrating the fact she touched the pickle. The girl in the advert states 'lets break the taboo', therefore the advert fights the myth about women not being allowed to touch the pickle jar, thus normalising periods and dispelling the myth.