Our group theme: 10,000 steps
I was a bit unsure on our given theme, and where we could go with the research so I decided to just type the theme into google and look at the first website that popped up. It was an NHS health advice site giving information on how many steps a day is healthy and how you can keep track on how many steps you're taking each day.
The average person's stride length is approximately 2.5 feet long. That means it takes just over 2,000 steps to walk one mile, and 10,000 steps is close to 5 miles.
Link to NHS 10,000 steps page
"Research shows that walking 10,000 steps a day will significantly improve your health. Putting one foot in front of the other can build stamina, burn excess calories and give you a healthier heart."
I then came across a walking charity in Britain called 'Ramblers'.
Link to Ramblers website
The Ramblers maintain footpaths and campaign for more access for walking to encourage more people to take up walking across England, Scotland and Wales. They aim to get all ages and sizes of people to get walking and get healthier, and have delivered various walking programmes that encourage those who are inactive to walk a little bit each day, steadily walking more and more to get healthier and more active, whether they are walking in the countryside or in the cities.
The Ramblers have also collected an online library of high quality walking routes, to give walkers freedom to walk at their own leisure along safe, inspiring and interesting trails. The fact the routes are interesting will encourage people to follow them and look online for more exciting trails to take part in.
Using the Route Finder on the website, I typed in my postcode to see what walks the Ramblers had collected in my area.
I found the options of routes within 10 miles of me to be quite disappointing, as my search only came up with the one route within Leeds City Center, and the Ramblers hadn't managed to come across any safe or interesting walks outside of the city.
Another thing I noticed about this website is that you had to pay a fee to become a member of the Ramblers, which meant that you could go on all the 'members-only' trails. I think that this kind of defeats the point of encouraging people to walk, as walking is a free form of transport that everyone should be able to enjoy without having to pay for it. However, when I looked into the price and found out that it was only £2 a month, with all the money going to charity, it seemed pretty reasonable.
I also typed in my home postcode in the Cotswolds, as I knew living in such a remote area surrounded by countryside would mean plenty of interesting and leisurely trails to follow. This returned plenty of results in and around nearby villages and towns that I have visited time and time again.
If I were to visit my family during this week, I would go on one of these walks to document it, however it's too far to travel for me, so instead I thought I'd look at some photographs of previous trails I have followed in the past. Me and my dad are quite keen walkers, and I have walked all around the fields near me, and trails in Forest of Dean and the Lake District, and find walking extremely relaxing and enjoyable.
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Packaging Research
We came up with one idea of packaging nutria-grain bars that we could place in the 10,000 steps kit, along with water bottles, wristbands, sweatbands, etc. We wanted something that was both simple, yet effective, and something that was aesthetically pleasing as most nutria-grain bars are really horrible to look at and don't make the food look appealing or tasty.
After researching into lots of already produced packaging for different types of bars, we found that there were all sorts of possibilities and variations on the packaging that we could go for. We were really intrigued by the packaging that was very plain and to the point, yet uses interesting and different paper stock/material to the usual stuff you see with commercially sold cereal bars.
However, after talking through this idea in the presentation with Amber and Simon, we soon realised that we couldn't produce our 10,000 steps kit as it would cost a lot of money to actually create a few of these to send out to the general public, so we had to change our idea.
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Thinking About Colour
Our initial thoughts were to work with pastel colours, in particular blue, green and brown as these three colours are very earthy and relate to nature and walking. We also thought about the fact that we're limited to two colours plus stock, so decided to use a stock that was an earthy colour, or something similar to brown, as this would give us more of a range of colour to work with.
Colour Schemes:
I think that this website has been really useful for us when finding a colour scheme to work with. The brief that we've been set only allows us to use 2 colours plus stock, so it has been difficult trying to choose a few colours that we could work with, especially as we've been thinking about using photographs in our final publication.
We have decided to go for a green or a blue, plus black and stock. This means that our photographs that we use can be printed in black and white (or black and the stock colour), and we can add a little hint of another colour, for example green. I think this will make the final publication really simple, yet classy and will help to achieve the overall feel that we want to show with our brand identity.
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Inspirational Quotes
We have decided to make a publication to motivate the general public to walk 10,000 steps to keep healthy and happy. In our publication, we decided to place an inspirational quote on every other page. We want quotes that are to the point and relevant, and that could look nice when written in a certain typeface on a page alone.
I had a look online for some different quotes, and these are the ones that I found:
Strive for progress, not perfection - Maya Angelou
Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will - Mahatma Ghandi
Energy and persistence conquer all things - Benjamin Franklin
Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm - Ralph Waldo Emerson
Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going - Jim Ryan
The finish line is just the beginning of a whole new race
Run like you're on fire
If you stop when you get tired, you never really finish at all
I can and I will
It's supposed to be hard. If it wasn't hard, everyone would do it. The hard... is what makes it great - A League of Their Own
Complaining won't burn calories
Stop competing with others and start competing with yourself
Pain is temporary. Quitting is forever
Quit slackin' and make shit happen!
You have no reason to stop
Don't find the time to exercise, make the time to exercise
Be in it for the long run
You've got what it takes, but it will take everything you've got
Turn off your computer and go get some exercise you fat, lazy son of a bitch
Repeat after me "I can do this"
Obsessed is a word the lazy use to describe the dedicated
No one ever drowned in sweat
Sweat like a pig to look like a fox
Of course it burns, but complaining won't make you look good naked
Remember why you started
Running is a pain in the ass, but it sure gives you a nice one!
Exercising can't be replaced with a wii
I do 5 sit ups every morning. May not sound like much, but there's only so many times you can hit the snooze button.
If it wasn't for the fact that the TV set and the refrigerator are so far apart, some of us wouldn't get any exercise at all - Joey Adams
If fitness came in a bottle, everybody would have a great body - Cher
Skinny girls look good in clothes. Fit girls look good naked
Just do it. Even if you suck at it - Nike
No matter how slow you go, you are still lapping everybody on the couch
If not now, when?
Your stomach shouldn't be a waste basket
Be stronger than your excuses
You can throw in the towel or you can use it to wipe the sweat off your face
There is no one giant step that does it, it's a lot of little steps - Peter A. Cohen
Physical fitness is not only one of the most important keys to a healthy body, it is the basis of dynamic and creative intellectual activity - John F. Kennedy
It is health that is real life, not pieces of gold and silver - Mahatma Ghandi
The world wasn't formed in a day, and neither will we - Lee Haney
Attention to health is life's greatest hindrance - Plato
A vigorous five mile walk will do more good for an unhappy but otherwise healthy adult then all the medicine and psychology in the world.
Time and health are two precious assets that we don't recognise and appreciate until they have been depleted - Denis Waitley
The human body is the best picture of the human soul - Ludwig Wittgenstein
An Idea To Make It More Viral
Another idea I thought of on how we could make the inspirational quotes more viral and available to a larger and wider audience, would be if we were to print the fliers out at a smaller size and attach them to helium filled balloons. We could then set the balloons off and when they land, someone would find the printed fliers and follow the instructions on the reverse side to go onto our website or twitter and send us something inspirational or something along those lines...
At college last year, some students on the HND course put together something similar and made a website called "you had me at balloon", as as form of guerrilla advertising. This was my main inspiration for our idea.
I really love their ideas and ways of getting people engaged with their work. I think the idea of leaving their website url so that the person, who has received the note or balloon etc, can go onto the website created and report back about how well the installations worked for them or how they feel now is a really good concept as it helps the designers to understand whether their installations are working, and gives them a way of knowing how many people reacted to them.
An issue that we've encountered with this idea, is the fact that we need to order balloons and helium so that we can attach our fliers and send them out. Most websites only deliver within 7 days, unless you pay about £10 postage costs, so we're going to have to all chip in to help pay about £25 for the balloons to work.
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