Head Shave

If you’ve read my last blog post, you’ll know i’m shaving my head for charity.

After being part of both the Change by Design and 21st Century Designer modules, I was inspired, by what is possible through design.
The 21st Century Designer module was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my life. Our brief was to design a way to transform how people perceive breast cancer research and increase everyday behaviours that support its eradication. It challenged us to deal with a very sensitive subject, it was an extremely hard issue to approach because of the shear scale of people that it affects. Ive not personally been affected by breast cancer, but emotions were high throughout the week from not only myself but everyone else too.

I lost my granny when I was 9 from ovarian cancer and that week pushed me to all my limits as I was surrounded by a topic that was still quite raw to me. As I was young when she died, I never really understood what was wrong with her, I knew she had cancer but not what kind, and it was only during this week that I found out. I was too young and naive to really understand the shear impact of cancer. Now that I’m older, it’s much clearer that it’s a bigger thing than what I thought back then.
I have always been inspired by my granny. Knowing that she would be so proud of me, make things seem a lot easier. This was when I decided that I wanted to make a difference. I wanted to do it for her.

I chose to donate my hair to The Little Princess Trust, and I am also  fundraising for them.

As a result of treatment for cancer, most children will suffer hair loss as a side effect.  Some boys and girls cope remarkably well but for others this can be very upsetting. They provide real hair wigs, free of charge, to boys and girls across the UK and Ireland that have lost their own hair through cancer treatment. However, in addition they also assist children with other conditions which also result in hair loss, the most common being alopecia. 

Watch “The Little Princess Trust – “What we do”.” on YouTube

I wanted to chose another charity too, that was close to my heart, to do it in memory of my granny. I chose Target Ovarian Cancer. Target Ovarian Cancer does all of these things:

– Supports women living with and beyond ovarian cancer through events, publications and information
– Campaigns for better treatment for women with ovarian cancer
– Improves earlier diagnosis through educating women and GPs
–  Funds research to find new treatment

The more and more I do research, the more and more I want to make a difference.

Ovarian cancer is one of the five most common cancers in women. Over 7000 women are diagnosed with ovarian cancer each year in the UK. Around four times as many women die each year of ovarian cancer than cervical cancer. Ovarian cancer is the fourth most fatal cancer in UK women after breast, lung and bowel, but there is no national screening programme for ovarian cancer. There is currently no evidence to show that screening is effective, which means it’s extremely important for women and GPs to know the symptoms of ovarian cancer.

Other conditions such as irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) have symptoms similar to ovarian cancer but if your symptoms don’t clear up, go back to your GP or seek a second opinion, even if you’ve had tests. 

I want to help raise awareness for Ovarian cancer.

Most cases of ovarian cancer are diagnosed in women who have gone through the menopause (over 50 years of age) but younger women are at risk too. Over 1200 women under the age of 50 are diagnosed each year in the UK, so everyone needs to be aware of the symptoms.

I was originally going to be just chopping my hair short although I had thought a little bit about shaving but never made the decision. Then after starting my fundraising I was spurred on by a lot of people to shave my head and thats how I changed my mind.

It is now just over a month until my shave on the 4th of July and I have already noticed a difference in peoples behaviours towards what I am doing. I am hoping that through conversation when people ask what i’m doing, they will understand why i’m so passionate about it. Hopefully people will realise why I think it is so important to know about ovarian cancer.

Any help would be greatly appreciated so if anyone would like to help me out, the link to my fundraising page is
–  http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/RachelGlen

The Final Presentation

For the latter part of the week we started to take our concept onto the streets. Jenna and Lucy went to a funeral directors and the steeple church in the centre of dundee and Allie and I went down into the Overgate to try and get some feedback from elderly people going about their days. The ones that went to the funeral directors were more successful than Allie and I as we found it very difficult to approach people with such a delicate matter. We tried to speak to one lady and she wasn’t very cooperative and told us that because she was over 80 she doesn’t really go to any activities. We found that speaking to each other about how we have coped and what we would like to help us when we are at that age was a lot more rewarding. We also found it easier to speak to family members about it rather than strangers in the street.

On Thursday morning we asked ourselves the questions,
What?
How?
Why?
Where?
Who?
When?
We made a mind map from this and connected in the research and feedback we had found out to simplify exactly what we were looking at.

This benefitted us as we then came up with the idea for our final prototype, by focusing on exactly what we want to bring to the community and what is needed. It consists of three separate models of the uk, each representing a different stage in the process we would deliver with our service. We connected the pins with thread, which is to represent us reaching out into the community.
The first one represents the current situation in the uk, where there is so many elderly people who don’t have a service out there to help them cope. The black coloured pins represent the elderly in the country that are lonely and are suffering from chronic depression and social isolation. There is no thread to connect the pins together due to the lack of services already out there in the community.
The second one has blue pins, and thread to connect. The connections are only from the main hub, which is us in dundee. This is the stage in which we will make initial contact with the elderly in need.
The third and final one has white pins and thread to connect as well. This is the stage where we have branched out to the elderly and within their community they are skill sharing and making new memories. The thread comes from the main hub but also from each pin to another pin to symbolise the community connections.

This morning we presented our final concept to the rest of the students in a petcha kutcha style presentation. 20 slides with 20 seconds per slide. This was a quick way to present and was quite hard to fit in everything we had to say. I think it was beneficial to get us to stick to a limited time so we got straight to the main points of the concept which emphasised our main aim of the project. This was the most nerve-racking thing I’ve ever done in my life, speaking in front of such a large group of people was the last thing I thought I would be able to do. I am so glad that I’ve finally done it and have gained more confidence in myself. I am proud of our group, we have had the smallest group and a hard subject to discuss, this caused strains on the project but we all worked together, took separate tasks and managed to get all the work done. Overall I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the week and would love to have the experience again. I have a new found confidence in myself and think this would benefit me greatly for future projects.

Making prototypes

Today we’ve been doing our first lot of prototyping, using materials we had to hand, to make the initial idea into something more. For our group I feel it’s slightly harder to show our concept through prototyping due to the nature of the subject. We are providing a service for the elderly to get them back into the community. We decided to create a number of prototypes to try and convey what we wanted to get across to the rest of the group. On of our ideas was connecting the community with strings, branching out to others.

We also came up with the idea of skill shares, the elderly would come together and use their skills to make blankets made from squares, and they could share squares and create new memories. Without having to confront their grief, they can take their minds off of things by keeping busy.

Change by Design – Day One

Today was the first day of our Change by Design module. Been a jam packed day, first started with what we thought well-being was. Suddenly the room was filled with post it notes all over the walls. We then split into groups and we all had a different topic to explore, our groups is ‘impact of grief’. Our group name is Forget-me-knot.

We began brainstorming and quickly came up with plenty ideas. Our group is very small with only 5 of us, but never the less we are getting through the work well with ideas flowing. Our concept is to create a service for people that are grieving after a loss. This particularly looks at having members of the public volunteering to go round peoples homes and help them with things that would be difficult after a loss of a loved one. This could simply be someone to take them to the shops, they will also work with them to create memories of their loved one throughout this time into something special like a photo album or CDs with their favourite music on. We are going to work on the concept tomorrow and make it a solid idea.

It’s a great atmosphere in the room with all the groups working and getting into the module. Excited for what tomorrow will bring.

The role of prototyping in “design thinking”

“Prototyping should start early in the life of a project, and we expect them to be numerous, quickly executed, and pretty ugly.”

Tim Brown frequently expresses the idea of prototyping and how it is key to success in design.  He states that “prototyping generates results faster.”. I agree with this notion as it refers to my jewellery project at the moment. I haven’t made many samples yet as everything in the workshop is very new to me, but after reading the book I have discovered that the more samples I make, the more feedback I can get, therefore more improvement I will have throughout my designs. It isn’t about waiting to learn different techniques, its about delving in and making the most of the skills and materials I do have at the present time.
“The faster we make our ideas tangible, the sooner we will be able to evaluate them, refine them, and zero in on the best solution.”

Design  thinkers will go through the three “spaces of innovation” during the prototyping stage, inspiration, ideation and implementation.  The early prototyping stage will be inspirational, developing new ideas from old prototypes.  As the project progresses we will develop ideas to include the demands needed for the markets and nearer the end of the project the prototypes will be more complete and will need to be accepted across the organization, and be able to show that it will work as intended for its market. Tim’s approach to prototyping in the process of design is very interesting. The idea that the prototypes can be terrible and not specifically a design to take forward, but how each one will have a different quality that can be developed further or dis-guarded.

After reading the book, it has given me a different outlook on the idea of “design thinking” and how the role of prototyping early on in the project is vital to progress thoroughly through the design task.
Tim explores the ideas of “design thinking” in a short video on TED.com. http://blog.ted.com/2009/09/29/a_call_for_desi/     He believes that “Human need is the place to start”. We need to first begin with people and culture, instead of technology.  Although this quickly moves onto the prototyping process and “we learn by making”.  The idea that “instead of thinking about what to build, building in order to think”.

With Jewellery and Metal Design being a very hands on subject, how prototyping is looked at as a process in the way of “design thinking” , will inspire me to start early and make, make, make. Not only now but in projects that I have to come in future years.