The Water Project- Designing for Change
Recently I did a project for school that was based around the idea of Designism. Designism is basically creating a product that has a purpose of changing or helping the world. I decided that I would create a mail-out for The Water Project. The Water Project is an organization that works in Africa to create sources of clean fresh water in small communities. In other words, the people at the water project use donations to build wells in small villages that do not have the resources to do so themselves. This helps to get children in school and women working without the worry of having to collect and find clean water sources. With a well these communities are able to focus their efforts on becoming more successful while being provided with means to maintain a reliable food source. The Water Project has this to say about their organization,
"Nearly one billion people have no access to clean, safe water. The dirty water they do have makes them sick. It robs children of hope. But it doesn't have to be that way.
We know that access to clean, safe water changes lives.
We know that when a well is installed for a village, girls return to school. Women begin small businesses. Men are no longer too sick to work. Fields are watered and food supply becomes more reliable. Health returns and children grow up to be productive members of their community. The cycle of poverty is broken. Lives change.
Access to clean, safe water isn't an end, it's a means.
"When water comes...everything changes." That's what our driver told us as we drove from town to town on our first trip to Kenya. Today, we see that change - and want share it with you - every time a new well is installed. Join us."
So to begin the project I had to brainstorm a way to create change with my product. Through research I decided the best way to get people to really understand the problem was to create a sort of interaction that in turn resulted in a sort of revelation. The main issue with getting people to understand how desperate these people are for clean water is that we have clean water so readily available to us that it seems very trivial. I decided to use this sort of thinking to my advantage by creating something that would be more of an indulgence to us, just as water is for them, and putting that in the perspective of water.
What do people find more indulgent then a box of expensive chocolates? This product is something we crave but can't have at all times. With this I had my idea, create a box of "evaporated water" that shows water as a product that is inaccessible and a treat. When a person finds the small box in their mail they would assume it is some sort of sample, only to open it and find it completely empty. This would cause them to examine everything a bit closer and have that moment of realization and read further information on the product. The goal is to make the person interacting with the box crave what they now realize they can not have, just as the poorer communities in Africa feel on a day to day basis.
First I found my dieline, a box that does not close and is instead held together by a sort of label, and naturally opens to a tray with rectangular spots for chocolates. At first the dieline's tray looked more like an ice cube tray, but because of the size and nature of the project, I changed it to have four large square pockets.
Box dieline
Tray insert dieline
I took inspiration from classic chocolate boxes and decided that simple was better. I used a blue textured card stock, to reference water, as the material of the box and a white textured card stock as the tray. I decided to use The Water Projects logo of a well pump as an embossed detail on the middle of the tray. I did not do any print on either of these pieces and decided to leave that for the box wrap.
The blue box
Underneath the white tray insert with embossed well pump
The box and tray put together and mocked up
After many test boxes and measurement changes I completed the box mock-up. For the wrap I thought that some sort of gold detailing would be nice so I used a gold coloured border on white paper. Fortunately, after a browse at the local art store, Curry's, I found a few pieces of shiny gold paper, which looked much better than the fake gold on plain paper. Upon applying information, I realized there was not enough room to include all that was needed. Despite widening the label, I was unable to resolve this. I looked more at chocolate boxes and decided that I would include a sort of index card, explaining which type of "evaporated water" each space was. On the other side of this card would be an about section explaining The Water Project and the organizations goals. Before I tackled this part I had to tweak a few errors in my label.
First draft of box wrap label
After the main box was finished and compiled I went to work on the card, which was printed on the same white card stock as the tray. After this was printed I placed the card inside the box and taped the label on so that you could easily access the inside. In reality the label would be glued on so that you could slide or rip it off.
The finished package-top
The finished package-bottom
Inside card side 1
Inside card side 2
In all, it was a fun project to do creatively and conceptually. I like the end result, however there are a few things I would tweak, like the front text on the label and possibly the side with information on the card insert. Taking inspiration from my travels and creating something that could potentially help those in other less fortunate places was very rewarding. I hope this inspires people to use their experiences as a traveler or designer to do something to make a difference!
A journey is making a difference.
-Kay
