Sharp Intentions: Regenerative Curriculum in Informal Spaces
Course: Design Innovation & Society Studio BDuration: October 24th - October 31st 2024
Software Used: Figma, Photoshop, illustrator
Patent Pending
Introduction:
Formal education often mirrors the policies and principles shaped by those in power, limiting the scope of critical topics like harm reduction and public health. As traditional curriculum design leaves gaps in educating individuals on safe needle injection and disposal, we must look to informal methods to bridge this divide. This guide aims to empower communities with accessible, guerrilla-style resources for understanding and practicing harm reduction, challenging the barriers that formal education often presents and perpetuates.
Problem Space
How do we create regenerative, informal education, in an accessible way?
Curriculum Goal:
Provide individuals with skills to complete their own guerilla campaigns.
Informational Goals:
Inform public about Syringe Exchange Programs, clean needles, & how to properly inject.
Aesthetic Goals:
Visually interesting & Communicative
Design Legacy
Street Focus: This project draws design, aesthetic, and motivational inspiration from the street-focused initiatives led by AIDS activists throughout the 1980s and 1990s. By honoring their legacy, it channels the power of public space as a platform for urgent health messaging and community empowerment.
Punk Aesthetic: This project embraces a collage and mass-distribution style inspired by the punk underground and the iconic street posters of the punk scene. The visual language borrows from this raw, grassroots aesthetic, amplifying the project's accessibility and its message of community resilience.
Understanding Informal Spaces
Target Space:
For this project, we specifically target the informal spaces we encounter every day—public bathrooms, blank building walls, telephone poles, and dumpsters. These everyday surfaces become canvases for informal experiences and imagery, shaping the context of our shared spaces and the conversations that arise within them.
Product Overview
This product lives as a downloadable PDF and features two main aspects: the guide and the posters. Through the guide, users are introduced to the importance of public health activism, an explanation of why needle disposal, proper injection form, and syringe exhcange programs are so important. This part also features instructions on how to make wheat paste and how to create more interaction with these the posters through nfc tags, qr codes, or pull tabs.
The Guide
The Posters
Usertesting & Feedback
We recieved feedback from users in our studio:
The project was well received. The aesthetic was very appreciated, very visually interesting. “I can very easily see this around troy” “The NFC tag makes me want to [interact with] the poster” “The colors make me want to read the posters” “I love the colors in the guide” “I’m not even a sharps user, but I find this engaging and informative [...] the information normalizes sharps use.”
There were some comments about how the NFC tags could be rewritten “I have [NFC activation app] on my phone and was able to easily rewrite one of the tags to have a youtube video. You should be able to lock the tags, but I’m sure someone would still be able to rewrite them if they really wanted to.” One person wasn’t clear on the utility of the NFC tag, as opposed to a website, pull paper, or QR code. Another person mentioned how it could be a good idea to encourage the use of both the NFC tags and a QR code, given the fact we are in a technological transition. Some talk of issues with readability, but they were minor and this feedback was given by someone who previously stated how much they loved the aesthetic overall.
Next Steps
Next, we aim to expand this project into personal spaces by partnering with organizations such as the Alliance for Positive Change, the Troy Public Library, and The Sanctuary for Independent Media. Through these collaborations, we hope to extend our reach and impact within communities. Additionally, we plan to refine our visual identity through user testing and interviews with needle users and needle exchange staff to ensure that our messaging resonates authentically. We also seek to evaluate the effectiveness of these posters in promoting regenerative education and explore how they might influence the way we experience and interact with other aspects of our daily lives.
Check out Final Proposal Document Here: