We are very excited to be partnering with London’s Design Museum for a new higher education talk series called ‘Design Change Makers’. The first in the series will be a special event focusing on mental health. The event aims to inform, engage and inspire creative thinkers to explore positive design solutions. We’ll be showcasing some... Read more »
So on the 28th, I went to the design museum to see Creative Conscience’s talk on design for change and mental health.
The talk was really great to be able to see, I’m so glad I went along! Helena Jennison, the marketing director of Movember spoke about how they want to create more of a campaign around their bid to increase men’s mental health awareness and a bit about what they’ve already managed to achieve. The whole tone of the Movember campaign is fun and for lack of a better word ‘trendy’. It’s all cool guys enjoying life whilst making a difference- which is inspiring! It’s the whole admiration thing too- ‘I want to be like these guys and they’re part of a really cool movement’ sort of thing.
Movember go about things in a very light hearted way and one of the things that they are weary about it that they can’t be too light hearted when it comes to the issue of male suicide. Helena was looking for suggestions on how to approach this without it being too bleak. In my opinion, I think you can probably just market the campaign with a really positive, hopeful outlook rather than a funny one. Give people hope and a sense of community without dulling down the facts.
The graduate panel were fairly interesting to listen to. Although I don’t really want to do a campaign, it was interesting listening to how Ashley started his typographic campaign without knowing much at all about mental health and still managed to produce a really lovely and empathetic final piece.
I really liked Lucy Cripps’ children’s book as it was along the lines of the sort of thing that I want to do- something physical that my audience can interact with. She made a good point that if children are taught early on that it’s ok to speak about their emotions and not to be ashamed of what they’re feeling, the sentiment can continue into adulthood.
Lastly, Ben Akers, the Creative Director of the Ethical and Sustainable Ad agency Republic of Everyone spoke. He spoke about his past in BBH and Droga5 etc. Amongst this he spoke about his 4320 LA campaign to sell weekend getaways from Sydney to LA. The film pitch that he showed put a giant grin on my face- it was insane. Teams of friends had to tweet for every 4320 minutes that they were in LA and were followed by a live stream. The campaign reached over 15 Million people worldwide and was just incredible. He said he barely slept during that campaign and his mental health took the toll for it.
Akers is now working on a film documentary about his best childhood friend, Steve who tragically took his own life a few years ago. There aren’t really words for how I felt after he showed his proposal video for the project. I think sharing stories is really important as everyone feels so isolated and ashamed about their own problems. In the video, Ben expressed the fact that Steve was a friend, a son, a father and so much more. But he didn’t see that. There are so many things we take for granted each and every day and I think what I really want to be able to do is bridge the gap for people to talk about these things and make people realise they’re doing good! They’re loved, they make people smile and they can only do the best that they can do. And if it’s the best you can do, then hell! Congratulations! Seriously! We’ve got to stop worrying about what other people are thinking of us and begin to realise that we can be proud of ourselves. And that’s enough.
