For my Final Year Design Project I created a learning experience for 15-18 year old second level students. ‘Science Sessions’ is a travelling learning experience that teaches these students about particular areas of science and experimentation that wouldn’t be covered in their school curriculum. The overall idea is that every year a new topic would be exhibited by ‘Science Sessions’ to the audience. The edition I created in particular covers the discovery of the Higgs Boson particle at CERN.
The aim of my overall design project is to create a positive interest in science in the audience and in particular the work and experiments going on at CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) within the 15 – 18 year old age bracket in second level students.
From the start of the project, I had to keep the target audience in mind at all times, as the main objective was to make sure they understood the information and were interested in it. I developed a visual early on in the project, through the use of paper. Paper was used in this project in two ways. It was a relatable medium between the project and the audience, and was also metaphorical in the way it can go from being big to small and vice versa, much like a lot of aspects to do with the content of the project.
One of the deliverables I wished to produce was a series of stop motion graphics or videos, which was something I had never done before. The three forms of deliverables – posters, videos and booklets, had to be interlinked despite the difference in mediums. The branding and colour coding helped to do this, along with the visuals used with paper and sharp edges and lines. These aspects all tied in together to create a fun, unique learning experience – keyword posters that caught the eye and introduced each section, stop motion videos that allowed the audience to understand the content in a simple and visual way, and the information booklets that contained the educational content of each section, as well as being a souvenir for the audience members to keep and study.