University mental health day 2024

Mental health is a topic that is really important to me personally. So when I heard my university were looking for volunteers for a mental health day event, I jumped right on it. This was also a way of giving back to the wellbeing team for being amazing for me :)

The problem

In our initial get together meeting we identified that there are many many problems with in mental health as we all know, so it was very important to not stretch ourselves too thin. So we decided to focus on the stigma of talking about your feelings. We were entitled to a stall in the University's City space in order to promote the event.

The solutions

Idea 1 - The elephant in the room

My team absolutely loved the idea of having someone dress up in an elephant costume to promote the event. It proved very successful with lots of people posting the elephant on their instagram stories to spread awareness for the event!

Idea 2 - Wellbeing tree

I originally came up with an idea for a ' gratitude table' where it would be one big mind map where people write something they're grateful for. But with the power of team brainstorming, the idea developed!

We decided that I would be making a big paper cut tree that is covered in sentence starters that people could fill out and stick to the tree. This was a nice way to get people to talk a bit about their feelings, breaking down that barrier for them :)

To attract some attention, we commissioned a balloon model artist to make us a tree our of balloons, which turned out amazing!

Branding and Promotion

As the designated graphic designer on the team, I was tasked with branding the event with a logo and an animated billboard.

The direction

Something I've always associated with mental health is arts and crafts. There's something so organic and authentic feeling about an arts and crafts aesthetic, so that is the direction I went in, taking inspiration from below.

V1

Initially I used a pre made papercut font which I quite liked, along side this elephant mascot. The reason we didn't go for this version was because:

1. it would feel more genuine if I actually hand cut it myself
2. the elephant was misinterpreted by a few people

V2

After paper cutting it with a craft knife, I scanned the letterforms into photoshop and added these warm and welcoming orange and yellow colours. I ,very much intentionally, wanted it to look imperfect and textured to add to that organic feel in order to make the event feel more honest. I also thought it would be suitable to adhere to the University's font to make it still look professional as well as playful.

Final Version

I was having a few layout issues with V2, so I had a discussion with my peers and decided to use paper cut out line dividers rather than the rigid clean lines I used previously. I also decided to animate it in photoshop frame by frame. This was done to give the logo another level of character and life. I thought frame by frame would look a lot more genuine and organic than a motion graphics approach.

Animated billboard

Wellbeing Tree Development

Other photos from the day

To conclude

Verdict

Such a resounding success! We got loads of engagement on social media and had a bunch of people come up to the stalls on the day, with plenty of people filling in the sentence starters :). I definitely feel as if we did our bit for reducing the stigma around talking about mental health. Which I am so very incredibly proud of.

What I learned/improved on

I really really learned the power of teamwork with people with like minded goals and motivations!
This was a great step into doing more voluntary work
Communicating with a team has defiantly improved for me