Being SMALL is good

After a crit with Lorenzo I have decided to change my concept from *Being short is good because you get more space* to *Being small is good because...*

The feedback I got from my crit was that my research was too focussed and I wasn't thinking laterally enough. To combat this I've written down lots of reasons why being small makes your life better, ranging from taking up less space in the womb to having more space while travelling to being a better bank robber.
Being small isn't an option you can choose, and so who do you target when trying to market it?
Reading on forums, when doing previous research, I discovered the main problem short people had wasn't anything physical but more of an emotional insecurity caused by their own perceptions and being called names by other people.
Bullying is a very serious issue and affects so many young people, and surprisingly still occurs during adult life. With this in mind I've decided that my target audience should be school children to inform them on reasons why it's good to be small. This could either be primary school children or high school children.
By targeting primary school children they will know from a young age that being small is good and it will hopefully reduce the chance of any insecurities they may have in the future. Being a younger audience it seems more likely that they will listen to the message and the risk of patronising the audience is lowered.
If I were to aim my product at high school students, my approach would need to be a lot more sophisticated. The language I used would have to be carefully considered to credit their intelligence and still be informative. Also a lot of the reasons for being small are quite dismissible and are less likely to convince an older audience. Arguably bullying when in high school can lead to very serious results and so it probably wouldn't be suitable to have a light hearted approach.
Considering these reasons, I think my best option is to target my product at primary school children.
My next step is research into what children are looking at and reading at the moment. What sort of language is used, imagery etc. And how support for bullying or other problems is offered in schools.

Relationship between space and the economy

I've been trying to find out how the state of the economy can affect space allowance per passenger. More space, means less seats, less tickets per aircraft. I have a suspicion that as the state of the economy because worse, less space will be allocated for passengers.
To find out if I'm right I've been contacting different airlines and travel agents trying to find out the pitch depth for seating, and am trying to find out how much it's changed each year. It's proving to be quite a difficult task, since each model has different specs, and travel agents don't tend to keep old information.

What is good- survey results

Following previous research I wanted to find out where people thought the most cramped places were. The most popular answers were; aeroplanes (25.6%), trains (25.6%) and buses (20.9%). I have tried to demonstrate these results using type. As this brief continues I intend on focussing on these three places to show why being short is good.

Type - Heirarchy

Heirarchy determines in which order the words are read by an audience. This can be done by changing things like; size, weight, layout, case and typeface. It has the potential to change the effectiveness of a message and if done wrong can miscommunicate to an audience. This exercise demonstrates how to draw attention in a particular order. However when it's used for posters, brochures etc then the audiences priorities must be taken into consideration.

Concept Statement

Being short is good because you get more space.

After delivering my presentation I realised that the majority of my argument for why being short is good is because of the trouble that tall people have in cramped places, and that it was more comfortable for short people.

With this in mind, my approach may be to try and communicate the value of space and demonstrate the fact can short people can enjoy this (with the possibility of showing the inconvenience lack of space causes for tall people).

What is good?

Being short is good.

Researching this has been both interesting and frustrating. One thing I have definitely learnt is to take care during measurement conversions.

To support this statement there are both psychological and physical considerations. During my research people's insecurities about their height and how they believe people perceive them has become very apparent, almost disturbing at some points. Without quoting anyone in depth, comments and feedback I received/read were mostly negative. What surprised me most is how insecure and upset people can be about their height, with several people using the word "freak". Playing on people's insecurities isn't something that I want to do, or would feel comfortable doing. It is interesting however, the way that height seems to affect relationships with other people. Females in particular, mention how height can affect relationships romantically, but mentioned also are the words "intimidating", "imposing" and "approachable".
The fact that height can affect health is particularly interesting. These health implications include: Breast Cancer, Prostate Cancer, Cardiovascular Issues, RSI, Trauma, and Law of Levers.
RSI and Trauma are heavily related to the surrounding environment and are most likely preventable. Reading about ergonomics and anthropometry I realised that only the 5%-95% of people are taken into account for a lot of product design. (With the bottom 5% being short and the top 5% being tall)
For some design, such as height of doors, head room etc the bottom 5% won't be affected, but for the top 5% it can be a big inconvenience. A lot of the time taking 100% of people into account can be a hassle but sometimes not doing this increases the risk of danger. For example the space allowance on an aeroplane. To alter the design to make it appropriate for everyone means taking out seating, increasing cost per seat/ticket.

(Rather than fill my blog with more statistics etc, if anyone is interested in the subject let me know, and I'll point you in the direction of some useful articles or you can have a look at the research I've gathered so far.)