Project Title: ILA (International Lemur Association)
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Project duration: 13 weeks (over the course of Spring 2024)
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Problem:
Address a social issue, discuss its relationship to graphic design, then plan and execute a multifaceted visual communication. In this semester-long project, create 5 deliverables: a storytelling piece, brand guidelines, an interactive display, a 2D design, and a 3D design.
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Solution:
I approached this project by assessing what social issues I’m passionate about. I decided to address the social issue of animal endangerment, since the safety of animals is something I have always been passionate about. Since this was an independent project, I decided to focus on one endangered animal, working to perfect the information of one animal, rather than trying to gather data on every endangered animal in less than one semester. I chose lemurs to focus on, since they are currently one of the top endangered mammals.
For my project, I wanted to raise awareness and educate the public on the current statistics of lemur endangerment. I made a website with reading materials on the subject. The website also has an option to purchase lemur keychains, all hand sewn by me, which proceeds go to the ILA fund.
In this semester-long project I created a logo, brand book, website, poster, plush keychains, and flashcards. The website educates the public, the flashcards quiz you, and the keychains can be purchased and the money is donated. There is also an option to donate money to the ILA fund if one would like to make a donation without purchasing the keychain.
When I displayed these deliverables, people were quick to quiz themselves with the flashcards and compliment the cute lemur keychains.
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Research:
I searched the web for my data, many of which are .org websites, so I knew the information was trusted. My primary research was conducted through journals. While going through my research, I found it shocking how rapidly the lemur population has fallen within the past 20 years. It was hard to find consistent statistics, some websites had different data than others, so in result I turned some of my statistics into approximate values. Some of my key findings were: 98% of lemurs are threatened with extinction, 33% of which are critically endangered, and one of the causes of lemur endangerment is pet trade, despite lemurs being aggressive pets.
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Final Deliverables:
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Digital Brand Book
Flashcards
Handsewn keychains
Poster
Website
Exhibit:
Challenges:
One thing I struggled with was the branding, I wanted my brand to be rustic and earthy, while simultaneously neat and clear. I found a compromise of using earthy tones, a slightly rustic typeface, with clean, minimalistic designs through the deliverables. One thing I wish I considered is how my poster would look in the room of my exhibit. The walls were white and my poster blended in with its background, while my classmate’s colored posters stood out.
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Learnings:
Throughout this project I learned how to make several different deliverables that all rely on, or are connected to one another. If I were to start this project again, I would choose a topic that had more research on it since I struggled to find accurate and recent statistics. One piece of feedback that I received that was incredibly helpful was to remove the text “INT. LEMUR ASSOCIATION” from my logo if the text was below 12 points. My flashcards originally had the full logo, but once I took out the full name the logo was much more legible.
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