Leaflets And Boxes

My take on the medial information leaflets that are put in all medicine boxes. From the culture probe experiment a little list of (non-medical/not scientifically correct?) "side effects" were produced. Mocked up to look like real pamphlets it makes it look official and serious but theres a hint of light heartedness to it...

Painted and built boxes to house the final product, complete with brail. First coat of paint dry, ready for text to be added...

Individualising Units

The dreaded, notoriously difficult to use, Heat Sealer! Aaaaaaaah!

First attempt went pretty well once i got the right temperature and stopped melting/burning the plastic...

The plastic was film of of a massive mothers day card (don't say i'm not resourceful!) not sure exactly what type of plastic it was but it was the kind of stuff that wrinkled A LOT and cracked instead of tearing, not very good when it comes to opening it up, the liquid would be everywhere and anywhere apart from in the glass.

Second attempt was with a different type of plastic, the soft stuff project folders are made from, you can see where the plastics been drawn/extruded the marks are really clear on it. It was quite thick and didn't feel fragile in your hand it didn't feel like if you held it properly you would burst it of rip it inadvertently  and had to be pulled hard to get it to rip, again no good when the liquid is likely to go everywhere.

The third plastic I experimented with was chopped up bits of a carrier bag I found in my desk drawer (just saving the planet...) It bonded really well, it was light and felt fragile, but had a toughness to it and was easier to open. 

But I did have an accident

The perils of working with liquids - and some shameless self promoting

Some good results came out of this session. Each compartment contains 25ml of 40% ABV. equivalent to 1 unit of alcohol:

Prototyping

At the focus group demonstrated, they didn't know where to pour a measure to when doing it themselves, the aim of this prototyping session was to experiment with colours on glasses that correspond to safe and unsafe levels to fill the glass with a spirit:

Too much spray paint; ran when it was turned upside down, 

turned out to be quite interesting because a lot of people 

said to them it represented the dangers of drink driving...

Stupidly, i did not let them dry properly and wrapped them in tissue to transport them thinking it would save the plastic cups from sticking to each other. The paint then stuck to the tissue, cracked and pulled off.... still get the idea though...

Culture Probe 2

I gave another focus group small plastic cups and asked them to mark on the cup where they would fill it to, with their drink of choice of spirit, if they were at a house party, pouring their own measures. Not worrying about sticking to guidelines or how many units it contained; the aim was to get them to mark a line where they would honestly pour it too. 

Using the measure cup from the healthier scotland government campaign to gauge unit content I filled the cups to their lines with water and measured the volume of each one. 

Marking on the measuring cup the corresponding amounts to show the differences better and where they sat in relation to the recommended measurements

Results

19 cups were measured

• 6 cups sat on the 50ml line which was 2 units; a double measure served in a bar.
• 12 cups sat above the 50 ml line (2 of which were closer to the 125ml line; a              measure for a small glass of wine served at a bar)
• Only 1 cup sat on the 35ml line which was 1.4 units; a measure usually reserved for drink such as baileys and whiskeys.
• No cups sat on the 25ml line which was 1 unit; a single measure served at a bar

Thats a large amount of people pouring themselves a dangerous measure of alcohol at once. When questioned they said that on average they would drink around 6-10 glasses similar to this in one night. 

6-10 glasses of 25mls of alcohol in 6-10 units

6-10 glasses of 50mls of alcohol is 12-20 units

The recommended daily intake is 2-3 for females and 3-4 for males.

These results are frightening...

Culture Probe

I got together a little focus group of people from my intended demographic for a little workshop. I gave them plastic pint glasses and markers with pre-drawn red lines. I asked them to consider the rim of the glass as the start of a typical night when they would go out drinking and consider the bottom of the glass as the end of the night/next morning.  The task was simply to draw a time line of events that took place when drinking. the results were incredibly interesting: 

Cup 1

Cup 1

Cup 2

Cup 2

Even though there were a small amount of participants there were a scary amount of the same  scenario drawn out, the most common being: 

• Pre-Drinking before heading out (predominantly wine -odd)
• Beginning the night out with a lot of pints
• Speed drinking to keep up with friends
• Feeling a lot chattier and speaking rubbish (saying things you wouldn't say when sober)
• Moving on to drinking spirits (mostly vodka)
• Feeling bigger and bolder
• Doing a lot of shots/drinking something you wouldn't usually
• Chatting people up/trying to pull
• Awkward dancing
• Making a fool of yourself
• Being sick
• Eating takeaway on the way home
• Blacking out/Falling alseep
• Waking up with strangers
• Being incredibly hung-over
• Not remembering the night the next day

All of which are considered side effects of excessive drinking.

Initial concepts for final

Prototyping vessels for the final outcome

A/B

What I was/What I am