Range of Issues

The Brief

This brief is very different from any brief I have undertaken so far at the college. The closest I have come to this brief is the live one I took part in for the Papyrus charity that helps young people who experience suicidal thoughts. That brief was my first experience of actually making a difference through my designs and is a key aspect of this brief. Before I specify what issue I want to research into, I will first brainstorm a number of them. One recommendation given by the tutors was to choose something that has meaning to me and something that I genuinely care about. This will help me to immerse myself within the subject and gain a strong interest in the work I produce.

Range of ideas

Parkinson's Disease

Following on from the advice given to me, one idea that came to mind straight away was to look into Parkinson's disease. A few years ago my dad was diagnosed with this disease, before then I hadn't really heard of it and wasn't sure what it really meant. Because of this, it made me think that the awareness and publicity around this disease isn't as big as something like cancer. 

The feedback I received about taking on this topic was firstly that I must be sure I want to use such a sensitive subject that is so close to home as it may be quite tough to talk about or explore further. My response to this was that I think it would be a good idea for me to research this as a subject to learn more about it and to eventually try to spread awareness for the cause. The other piece of feedback I received was that diseases can be a very broad subject, so it might be a good idea to specify my research into maybe looking at how the disease effects certain aspects of a sufferers life e.g. its effect on employment. This made me think of my dads situation as he had some difficulty trying to balance him wanting to work but also needing some assistance in terms of benefits. This would make a really in depth and worth while research project as it is something that would otherwise be overlooked but in fact has some really negative effects on peoples lives including my dad.

Racism in Football

A passion of mine and a big part of my life is football. From a young age I have always watched and played football on a regular basis. One aspect of football that is well known around the world for all the wrong reasons is the obvious and overt racism that still exists to this day. Moving on from racism is a huge part of society all over the world and for countries such as ours it has been a great success in eradicating this. However, football remains as one of the instances in which racism is still obvious and a big problem.

Inspired by the advice to keep things specific, targeting racism as an issue in general would be way too broad however looking at it within a certain sport would specify my research and final resolution. The other advantage of doing this issue is that it already gets a lot of publicity and this means that there are plenty of examples of how graphic design has tried to help. This would form a large and in depth body of research that would then influence my practical. I guess this could also be seen as a negative as it is more publicised than the previous idea.

Moving forward

After reading up about issues in the 21st century that interest me personally, I think that the idea I am most interested in exploring is Parkinson's Disease. Apart from being very close to home, the factor that swayed me was the fact that as an issue, it doesn't get much coverage at all, let alone graphic design and I think it is more worth while to explore something that hasn't been publicised as much as other issues in terms of design. This gives me an opportunity to produce design that hasn't been done before and that hopefully could make a difference as opposed to producing design that is similar to design already existing today which would be the case with something like racism in football.

Moving forward then, I will be investigating Parkinson's Disease in general as well as the publicity it already receives. I will be speaking to my dad about the matter to get some inspiration on where to take my research and practical investigation.