#thats such a depressing hashtag to use to mark these posts

[too-tierd-to-exist]

*concludes that I don't have a sort of crush on someone anymore*

few weeks later

*has a good conversation with them about moralities and personal things*

realization

ah fuck I still like em like that.

the only reason I forgot in the first place was cause we had not had a deeper conversation like that. I honestly think it is because they stopped being up late. Cause of timezones there was a period of time where late-night "deep" conversations couldn't happen cause when it's never later than 6 or 7 you can't get there mentally. or at least I know that I can't. I feel like my anxiety is less bad at night because my body has less energy to be anxious. The lack of anxiety is what causes me to open up more at night. Since conversations similar to this were happening less and less is what caused me the get over it more or less. The reason I like em is cause I like who they and these types of things show what they truly think and who they are. In a way, I lost sight of this part of who they are as a person which honestly sucks. I would only see their casual day to day (who id like to add I still like), but with only seeing that I forgot what caused me to like them in that matter in the first place. Since I remembered all of this I'm right back down the rabbit hole of oh shit I think I like them. And honestly, I don't know how I feel about that. I don't know if they'd like me in that way or if id even want to date them for that matter. This whole mess has caused much confusion. Part of the reason for my hesitancy is that even tho its not the most practical thing to do I can't help to think long term. They live far away for one which isn't an issue in itself, I just don't know how I'd deal with not being able to see someone in person while dating. Though if we would date odds are it wouldn't be forever, the fact that they have no proper plan or goal makes me nervous. I know that shouldn't be the most important thing considering we're teenagers, but subconsciously my brain is saying "oh no don't date them they have no future" which is something that shouldn't be so important to me as a 16 year old. Writing it out and seeing it in text does quite make it better or worse. I do think it has helped in some way. it kinda made me feel better about it and I more clearly feel that yes I do like him and yes i.. wait shit. I almost forgot about my actual fucking partner. one who I love so dearly with all of my heart. I wouldn't know what id do without them. now that I've taken a second to tangent back to where I was. how would that affect us? especially since that their already their partner. it wouldn't be bad, it's sure as hell would be different, and I don't know if I would want any change with our relationship. Im so incredibly happy with how our relationship currently is I don't know if I would want anything about it to change. I know change happens and I can accept it and what comes with it the only thing is that this would be brought on voluntarily with the knowledge that this would change something. and I don't know if I would want to bring that upon myself and especially Miki. this would not be a bad change I do know that. its just the difference I don't know if I would want that. it may not be great and I know all change has its risks, but I don't know if this one would be worth it. itd be one hell of a conversation to have with them, and I don't know how to approach them or if I even want to. This is not to say that id does this behind their back, id never do that. its just the process as a whole I guess just kind of scares me. I guess one thing I could do is just say changes that would most likely happen if dating were to occur, I think when it is just me and Miki together nothing would change much, at least I don't think so. so with the three of us I guess.. now that I think about it not a ton would change in that manner as well huh. I defiantly talk to him more one on one but that'd be a good thing. hmm, maybe I should have written this down sooner. I've been overthinking it yet not thinking into it at the same time. well, that's hell. I guess the last and in a way, the most important factor would be if he likes me in that way. There's no easy way to tell. To be frank I haven't seen him interact with good friends of his

that he would even think about dating. Most people he's already dating, not close to at all, or it would be weird/inappropriate to date. Making it so I have no reference with how our interaction would differ from most. Honestly, best case scenario, he admits how he feels about me, but that's a chance thing for sure. I guess if I don't feel like I can outright say it the best way to find out about how he feels would be to try to get him to say things that would imply how he feels about me. Hopefully away from a joking manner cause, ya know jokes lol. There is a solid chance I'm gonna end up staring at my ceiling thinking about this tonight. Now that I think about it, it's kinda ironic that the conversation I had early tonight with him my partner and someone who I just met today who I'm really just eh about is partly what sparked this again. The whole in a way you get to know someone the most authentically through the internet. I am saying this only when the relationship is based on talking through voice calls over a longer period of time. You get to know someone for their personality, opinions, beliefs, and thoughts without the first impressions of their appearance. You take into consideration their appearance much less and to make that strong a bond with someone without even touching them really says something about how strong that relationship is. That's why I'm hesitant to people at first. You can't tell who they really are till you know them better. and then and only then will I trust them. After that trust exists me opening up happens more or less by chance. it depends on my mood, people around, amount of people around, and the current topic. This is cause unless something is greatly bothering me I just tend to not talk about it. Which I'm aware isn't the best and I think I'm working on it. I am going to therapy for that matter. And he is one of those people who I do trust. He's someone that I can just be in a VC with only the two of us and not feel anxious. I trust him and I feel like he's someone I can always be honest with. It's almost ironic that I feel all of this yet I'm not telling him. I hope that one day something will occur between the two of us. I kinda want to tell him now. With all of it written down, I feel more secure with how I feel and more organized and clear mentally. The only thing is I should probably talk to Miki first. and I don't know how id do that. I don't even know if I told them I might be poly. god, that conversation makes me more nervous than the act of actually fucking telling him I like him. oh shit, I just realized if he doesn't know I could be poly would he even tell me if he likes me? eh who knows, I sure as hell know I don't. I'm debating on putting the name of the blog hidden in my bio. In a backward way, I want someone to see this and I know at this moment in time there is quite literally no way for someone to find it. You know what I'm gonna put it there for now and a few days later ill freak out and take it back out. Well, I think that's it for tonight. pheww

[gdmm203advertisingdanihaynes]

Advertising - Design Report

Danielle Haynes 

For this module we had to select a charity and create a campaign around them. The charity I chose was Mind - for a better mental health. The reason why I chose a mental health charity is because I know a few people who suffer from mental health and I wanted to expand my knowledge. Before doing any research, I thought that mental health issues were genuinely triggered by social media and the pressure of having to look a certain way or if you did not have the money to buy all these super expensive gadgets etc. But now my opinion has changed, yes social media does have something to do with mental health issues but only a percentage. There are so many different reasons as to why you or someone you know might be suffering. Different mental illnesses are caused by different situations. For example, people might be depressed because someone close to them passed away, some one could have anxiety because they might have had a car accident in the past so now they get anxious while traveling. When something life changing or traumatising happens to us our mental state will most likely change. 

The reason why I decided to chose Mind is because I was very familiar with their logo as I have seen it before but do not know much about them as a charity. So I was intrigued to find out more about them and what they have to offer for people who needs the help. 

When researching into them I discovered that they already have done so many campaigns, some their own and some partnered. Mind’s campaigns are all about awareness and from that I decided to do my campaign around awareness.

I found making my strategy document very difficult, I really struggled. I think what I found hard was getting my head around the fact that the problem to solve and the proportion had to relate to the strategy statement but with that being said, if I did not have a stagey document, I would have really struggled to find a starting point for ideas. For my four strategies I had were Education - to help educate people what mental health illness is, Support and Empathy - to help people know that they don’t have to chose to suffer in silence, Defiance and Overcoming Adversity - people find it hard to find inner strength and lastly Lifetime Guardian - people don’t know when mental health is going to approach them. 

Next, I moved on to creating rough sketches for for each strategy. I did find it hard at first but when I started to pick out words from the ‘problem to solve’ and the ‘promise’ I just focused on them because those words are the ones that stood out to me and felt that they were the most important. For example, in Education the word ‘stigma’ caught my eye and I used that to base some of my ideas. I made sure that for each strategy I had at least two. When we had our one to one with STUFF, they both seemed to find my ideas from my Education strategy the strongest because they said to them it felt like I already had a campaign going with my hashtag that I had on the sketches which wad #stopstigma. 

Once, I was settled on my call to action which was awareness and what path to go down due to sketches, I then went straight into developing the illustrations and typography. The more I experimented with type, layout, colour and illustrations the more I got an insight on where I was going. I did decided to do everything digitally because with Mind’s style it looks hand written but I decided to do handwritten digitally. I could not find Mind’s main typeface so I decided to recreate it the best I could with the brush tool on Illustrator. I feel that it worked really well and that the final results look professional and neat. When I had my final outcome for my illustrations, I started to figure out what strap-lines would be the most effective and make people think. To do so I looked back at my strategy document and looked and some phrases that I had typed up in there and I found some really effective ones like “Mental health issues are apart of life”, “There is still stigma still attached”. With the stigma quote I did decided against using it as a strap-line because I felt that it was many too punchy so thats when I decided to create the hashtag #StopStigma. I felt that it was a good way for people to interact and get involved. 

So for my 48 sheet billboard designs, I ended up creating three different ones. So, my first one resembles the strategy as a whole, it is a illustration on a question mark with a human face attached to resemble people not knowing or quite understanding what mental health issue is and I decided to pair it was a rhetorical question to get people thinking. My second design was a illustration of a tree that indicates “mental health issues is apart of life” so I instantly thought of ‘the tree of life’ and the strap-line I paired that with was “Its human to tackle mental health issues”. I used this one because I just wanted something that reassures people when coming across my billboard. My final design was illustrations of Mind’s logo and a illustration of a brain, which was arranged to show that more people have a brain that has a lot going on than a calm, normal looking brain. The strap-line I chose for this was was “Tackling mental health issues is ok”. Again I wanted something that was reassuring. 

For my colour scheme throughout my whole campaign is yellow, blue, white, purple and black. I stayed with Mind’s colour scheme because I felt that I didn't have any reason why I should have changed. 

My second advertising route I chose was social media. I felt that with my charity being mental health, I thought social media had to be a must. I decided to create posts that would be posted for a suffer to see and hopefully give them that little bit of reassurance or motivation they needed if they cant go and see Mind or don’t want to talk to anyone. The posts just have statements on them with my hashtag as Instagram is all about hashtags so I thought it would tie in perfectly. 

My third advertising route was a radio ad. I decided to create a radio ad because people have such busy lives that sometimes people might not have the time to watch TV, so with that being said if people haven’t got the time to walk or in a hurry they might drive or get a taxi, so thats why I chose a radio ad. I descried to have two different roles playing in the same ad.For instance, you have the narrator who talks to use and asks you rhetorical questions and then you have the voice of someone who works for Mind. They tell you why you should chose Mind and their experience. What I love about my radio ad is the contrast of the voices and how both conversations are completely different. One is questioning you and the other is educating you. If I was to redo it I would definitely try and make it sound louder. To me it is very quiet and some parts do sound a bit shaky in some areas. 

For my final advertising route, I created an event poster. My event was a coffee morning that people can come along to no charge and have a chat over a coffee and a slice of cake. Wanted my event to be chilled out and something for everyone to get involved. I created a different version of T.L.C as a little something to sum up what the event is about. For my event its stands for T - TALK, L - LEARN and C - CONNECT. For my final outcome for my poster I did want to take photos of it in a shop window and which I was going to do in my coffee shop that I currently work in, however, due to the policy I was not allowed so I decide to take photos around the college and I also made some mockups of what it could have looked like in a shop window. To go alongside the poster, I made some mock ups of coffee cups because I thought it would be a nice touch and also a great way to advertise further. The designs I used on them was the statements from my social media posts because I thought it would be a nice way for people to see them if they don’t have social media. 

Overall, I am very pleased with all my final outcomes and believe that they are the bets of my ability. If I had more time I would have asked around to different coffee shops asking if they would be ok with me placing my poster on the window but I feel like the ones I have are just as effective.