Promotion
Mental Health Public Service Campaign
DESCRIPTION
Research public service campaigns (posters or magazine ads), and document your favorites. Some categories might be humorous, eye-opening, headline reliant, clever, image reliant, comparison, etc.
List and sketch to explore your topic of choice. Select the topic you feel strongly about that you’d like to use for your PSA posters. Expand your message to a poster campaign (3 posters). A campaign communicates the same idea with variation.
PROCESS
(Programs, Tools, Skills, FOCUS principles)
The steps that I followed in my process were:
1.I know many public service announcements are to bring light to serious and devastating issues. On the whole though I believe negativity can create more negativity. I feel that we need more uplifting messages.
I have family that battle with mental illness and suicide feelings. I know many attempts to bring awareness to this growing concern sometimes seem insensitive. I wanted to make sure I created a poster that would be positive, help decrease stigma, and that others could connect with.
2. Asked to collect 15 example of PSA’s that we liked. Then to list 20 topics and slogans for brainstorming. Once narrowed down to our top three favorites then we were to create sketches. Then we created digital options that we had to narrow down to one for a series of posters or billboards with the same theme or message.
After collecting and making a list I decided the three I would experiment with was Distracted Driving, Mental Health Stigma, and Suicide awareness.
Mental Health Matters – End the stigma – Survivor
For this I thought I would make a brain that was also a maze.
Click it, Park it, Start it… Distracted Driving
I liked the rhyming, catchy phrase this had and was more positive than a death sentence once behind the wheel.
Suicide Awareness – “Grow through what you go through” & “You survived the Trauma; You can survive the Treatment” were the most popular sayings among those I had asked.
3. I created a new 8.5 x 11 inch document in Photoshop. Then I pulled my photo on top of it and started designing.
4. I didn’t want just straight lines or circles as a design element but something that added to the theme. I played around with flourishes, swirls and curvy lines. I did also add a helm element in the text to play into the theme and repeat the circle shapes in the ship.
5. The text was tricky with the star light background. I tried dark on light, no box, and stayed with my original but brightened and enlarged.
MESSAGE
Each person that has been strong enough to survive their trauma are strong enough to recover. This recovery looks as different as each individual.
AUDIENCE
The audience had a wide range from teens to middle aged adults, different ethnicities and genders.
TOP THING LEARNED
For the finals I picked some great mock-ups that others have made available for free. I spent hours searching for images with the same model or themes to help me convey the different types of emotions people may feel, trauma, or life experiences.
Often those that we see that are homeless or have addictions are not just the product of poor choices. Often it is so much more that has compacted into more complicated issues.
Many other times we interact with people that seem healthy and happy to find out later that they have great inside turmoil that have to take a day at a time to overcome.
I hope all those that struggle know that they are amazing people and that others empathize and want to help.
Please call 1-800-273-8255 for help during thoughts of suicide.
If you want to get more involved in ending the stigma you can call Mental Health Matters 1-800-107-0160 or contact a local NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) organization.
COLOR SCHEME & COLOR NAMES
Complementary // Orange & Blue
TITLE FONT NAME
Arial Rounded MT Bold
COPY FONT NAME
Egyptian Slate Std
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