Samaritans Mental health campaign - research (Poster design research)

 When traveling to Leicester earlier today, I have noticed a few powerful posters that really got my attention. They had handwritten messages about mental health. I decided to look more into this campaign I noticed to get a better idea of its purpose. 

Samaritans

I found out that this is a campaign held by Samaritans organization that I have researched earlier in the term. The messages are written by real people and because of that they feel more real and are drawing attention. I really like the idea of hand-written messages because the notes seem more personalized and real. This particular campaign was created to highlight the mental health crisis among men (Kiefer, 2019). It is why all the messages are written by men. It should show that men can also show their weaknesses and ask for help. I believe that it is also there to fight with the toxic masculinity and the image, men are expected to represent all the time. 

I was thinking about what got me so interested in these posters, if they look so simple. They just felt real. There was nothing else needed on them for me to imagine a person who got help, to write down that note. They seemed like the kind of sticky notes I stick around my room to remember about things. I think this is a valuable observation. I myself stick notes to remember about things, I also write down motivational notes so I keep reminding myself to be kind and understanding towards myself. I think, when a person writes something down, it becomes real and when a person reads it constantly or writes it constantly, it becomes something they start to believe. It is a little bit like a manifestation. 

I wanted to see more about this campaign and see if the people writing those messages are real people or just made up ones, but it turned out, that each note was written by a person and they have also created short youtube videos explaining their story. This is one of the videos I have watched to understand the campaign:

I think this adds a lot to the campaign. It makes it powerful, because it is real. Those things are not made up stories but examples from a person's life. It is touching to hear others' stories and it really is heartwarming to see that they got the help they needed. This is my personal goal as well, therefore I decided to inspire my 4 posters by this campaign a little bit. 

As I mentioned, I wanted my posters to be more of a mental health awareness posters, than advertisements for my animation. Of course there will be an information about my animation on the posters but it won't be the most important thing. I was thinking of making 4 posters in black (remembering my theme is 'ultimate black') of notes from children to parents. But I wanted to incorporate my character on the posters and the contrast between light and darkness as well. In my next post I will show my planning for the posters. 

I think this research helped me to understand why this campaign made such an impression on me when I saw the posters in real life. I also think it added to my knowledge on how a poster design can be approached and that it does not have to be schematic. I want it all to be different

Reference list:

Kiefer, B. (2019), 'Pick of the Week: Samaritans' handwritten ads remind men that 'it's OK not to be OK'', Campaign, 28 March. Available at: https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/pick-week-samaritans-handwritten-ads-remind-men-its-ok-not-ok/1580285 (Accessed: 17/05/2021).