How to... Meet people with similar interests?

Monday 21st September was the first real day of the course and everyone was thrown into the deep end.

Groups were assembled randomly to come up with a solution to a proposed problem, ours being: 'How to meet people with similar interests?' The rest of the people that I would be working with for the next week were:
Tom Bates, Brian Cantwell, Arthur Carey, Naomi Farrar, Kirsty Hair and Meryem Meghraoua
The initial stages seemed to be a little static, with members maybe feeling a little apprehensive about expressing their ideas. In order to combat this we each carried out an individual brainstorm to come up with as many ideas as possible. My brainstorm looked like the following:



This was followed by a collaboration of ideas and finally an ideal solution to the problem we faced. The solution came in the form of different coloured wristbands that 'freshers' would wear on their first day/week of term. Each colour represents a different subject area that the client would wear dependant on their interests. For example if a person liked listening to music they would wear a yellow wristband, however if they liked playing sport they would choose a green coloured one. We thought this was a good idea as it made it possible for people to identify beforehand who had the same interests, and therefore avoid the often awkward introductions to new people.

This was not were the idea stopped however. After some research we came across silicone wristbands that were also USB sticks. They are available in hundreds of different colours, including the ones we had assigned to our nine categories. When it became clear this was the definate approach we wanted to take, it was decided we would create documents that could be put on each wristband. Information contained within included: an invitation to a mixer event specific to the area of interest, designed by Meryem, and a map that highlighted all areas of interests within Leeds, designed by Naomi.




My key role within the group was to create posters that would visually advertise what the basics of our solution were. I decided they would have to be bold and contain all the colours of the nine wristbands and their respective categories. Another imperative feature for the poster was the display of the logo, designed by Naomi, but created by Tom. Below are a few examples of the final design: