Within this brief, I have been accessing the use of personas
in design. I would then utilise the information I have gathered to create my
own examples with a focus on my subject area. I began this task by looking at
some current examples by others in order to give myself a better understanding
on the brief.
“A
persona is a way to model, summarise and communicate research about people who
have been observed or researched in some way. A persona is depicted as a
specific person but is not a real individual; rather, it is synthesised from
observations of many people. Each persona represents a significant portion of
people in the real world and enables
the designer to focus on a manageable and memorable cast of characters,
instead of focusing on thousands of individuals.” (Shlomo Goltz, 2014)
In the lesson, we looked into the work of Wieden
& Kennedy and their campaign for Honda Civic / Honda Civic Type R. The
advertisement is an interactive video in which the viewer is invited to engage with
the clip through the use of the ‘R’ key on their keyboard. By doing this the
user is able to switch between 2 parallel storylines by holding and releasing
the key. The ‘released-key’ version shows the standard Civic and a normal
lifestyle however, the ‘held-key’ version shows an intense action robbery scene.
This video is linked below.
http://www.wklondon.com/work/the-other-side/
For this brief, I created three personas. I tried to vary the age range of these characters. To create the characters, I used Adobe Illustrator. I wanted to create faces from minimalistic line illustrations as I am comfortable working in this manner. I then described the character I had produced using Adobe InDesign. When creating the illustration, I tried to reflect age as much as I could. I feel I managed this effectively. When describing the persona of the character I tried to reflect the influence of my Major Project within each profile. My process can be seen below from my sketches, to the final outcome shown as profile cards.
For this brief, I created three personas. I tried to vary the age range of these characters. To create the characters, I used Adobe Illustrator. I wanted to create faces from minimalistic line illustrations as I am comfortable working in this manner. I then described the character I had produced using Adobe InDesign. When creating the illustration, I tried to reflect age as much as I could. I feel I managed this effectively. When describing the persona of the character I tried to reflect the influence of my Major Project within each profile. My process can be seen below from my sketches, to the final outcome shown as profile cards.
Upon completing the personas,
I am now able to reflect on their effectiveness in relation to my Major
Project. Having not used personas before I was very sceptical on whether they
would be of any use within my practise. Now that I have created my personas
relating to my Major Project, I feel they may come into use during my
methodology stage as I begin to build profiles on what sort of age range cares
about sustainability. In relation to the design of the personas I feel I have demonstrated
my abilities in layout. If I were to do this again I would add colour to my
design.
References
Goltz , S. (2014). A Closer Look at Personas: What They Are & How
They Work. Retrieved from https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2014/08/a-closer-look-at-personas-part-1/.
Wieden + Kennedy.
(2017). Honda – The Other Side. Retrieved from http://wklondon.com/work/the-other-side/.
