What would I do if I was an inch tall?

I've decided that instead of using a character who is just small, I'm going to use one who is about 2 inches tall. Through exaggeration the message is perhaps more subtle and will persuade children being small is good without it being too obvious what the purpose of this product is (to stop them having insecurities).
I began to think about what I would do if I was this height, and started to sketch some of the ideas out.

Measuring up

An idea for expanding the MicroMike brand. Creating different measurement systems, which instead of actual units, it compares your size to size of celebrities.
This could come in the form of tape measures, wall charts etc. And so it becomes a piece of interactive design, possibly suitable for a class room. By comparison to successful stars, children can realise that they too can be successful.

Possible formats for the solution. I'm definitely favouring the comic strip though.




An idea of how a comic strip could be set out, I think this is not an appropriate format though because it's too big and the whole concept is about being small. I've drawn and mocked up an idea for a comic strip that is literally a strip. So that it folds down into something smaller, perhaps like a consatina.



This format seems much more appropriate, and I will be developing this one.

Development of the logo.



Red and yellow are more favourable colours because they seem to communicate energy and adventure without being gender biased.



I've vectorised some different examples of the logo to see which are more successful when in this format. I'm still not sure which I prefer.

Developing the character

I've started to think about creating a character, here are some of the sketches for names and how they might work as a logo. I've decided I want to create a character who is known for being small and uses this to his advantage.

Below I have started to analyse shapes and lines used for characters in The Beano and have tried to work out the proportions for my charcter, but I'm struggling with the actual design of the character. I can't seem to find one I actually like, or has any appeal to an audience.

Type Workshop - Paragraphs

This session was all about learning how to make a paragraph readable. We were given a paragraph and instructed to make it fill the column so it was as readable as possible. We could do this however we wanted, but sticking to the same typeface. This was achieved by increasing point size, increasing the leading and fully justifying the text.



Our next task was to make the type as readable as possible and not to worry about filling the column. For this I changed the type size, leading and left aligned the paragraph. When fully justifying a piece of text it causes uneven spacing between words, which can change the pace it is read at. It is important that leading should be at least 20% larger than the text size for readibility however if it is too big it can cause unnatural pauses between lines.



We then had a similar task but this time had to alter the type to fit in a 1 column, 2 column, 3 column and 6 column. The 1 column was particularly difficult, as we were aiming to get 5 words on a line. It proved to be quite a challenge without reducing the type size to something unreadable. When trying to fit type into a narrow space like this, condensed type faces are useful.

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.