The Water Plague

This concept is built around the premise that this entity we know as water is not infinite. Based on the research we as Greenhatcreative have conducted, which includes water expert interviews, on-sight surveys, videos, and multiple articles, we've concluded that many people in our society are uninformed about any idea of a "water crisis." As Visual Communicators, it's our desire to transform this perception into one of significance and action.

Note that this idea is in its VERY early stages of development. Please feel free to provide any feedback you feel we may benefit from.

Initial Location: IUPUI campus - Student Center & Library
Durration: 3-4 days(Monday- Thursday)

Day 1:
All prices on water bottles would rise to $8 (give or take a few cents). This includes vending machines, corner stores, cafeterias, bookstore, etc. This action would most likely spark some controversial discussion among students/faculty. Outrageous water prices may entice people to resort to drinking fountains for water or bring their own water containers.

Day 2:
With day one still in action, all drinking fountains would be blocked off with caution tape, in addition to possibly blocking off the main fountain across from Herron. The caution tape may reveal some special message tailored directly to the particular instance.

Day 3:
All bathrooms will be blocked off or the majority of stalls would be blocked off with another special message accompanying it.

Optional Day 4:
A mass email would be sent out to debrief what had happened, why it had happened, and what can be done about it. The messages tied into each day may be enough to direct viewers to some resource in which they may obtain further information regarding the experience/water crisis.

Environmental Engagement

This idea centers around placing environmental-installations around campus in locations where college students interact with water. We hope that by placing these pieces in areas where the students go, we can grab their attention long enough to inform them about the water crisis, and direct them to a website where they can learn how to help.

This concept can be carried out in a number of ways. Some of the ideas we've had so far are; placing roadblocks and caution tape around drinking fountains and vending machines, make a mock-graveyard with water bottles instead of tombstones, place donation wishing wells around campus, give-away free bottles of water that are filled with sand and shutdown the campus fountain.

Idea Convergence

After all of our divergence and generation of ideas, we started to converge on the ones we liked best. We started by putting stickers next to the ideas we liked best, than took those and wrote them on the whiteboard so we could analyze them further. Eventually we narrowed the ideas down to our top 7.

Those 7 were:

-Water Tax
-Water Credit
-Water Points
-Get rid of water
-Dye the canal
-Make water efficient products
-Engage the environment

We each took one of these vague ideas and developed it in a way that it related to our audience of college students. We then judge the 7 ideas against a criteria that included visibility, do-ability, will it help the cause and will it inspire our audience. Based on that criteria, we were able to settle on 2 ideas that we feel strongly about.

10/16 Brainstorming Meeting

Thursday, October 16th was Greenhat Creative's big brainstorming meeting. We met up with some of our dream team members in downtown Indianapolis and spent the evening generating a lot of ideas for how to engage college students with the global water crisis.

We started out by introducing ourselves, and explaining how we had come to the conclusion that college students were not informed about the global water crisis. We then proceeded to engage in four brainstorming activities, each one a little more focused then the last. This allowed us to loosen up at the beginning and keep a high energy level through out the meeting.

The meeting was a success, and we ended up generating several hundred ideas. Our next step will be to evaluate the ideas and develop the strongest ones into prototypes.

Designing Our Invitation

The invitation was a lot of fun to make, not to mention hazardous as well. We* chose the Fiji water bottle because it was ergonomically easy to work with. It felt comfortable holding it, small, and its simple geometric shape made it easy to design around.

I used spray adhesive to adhere the label to the bottle. I used GooGone to get the sticky goop left behind from the original label. The GooGone unfortunately left behind a greasy residue that I was able to get off by soaking the bottles in a sink filled with hot water and dish soap.

The design behind the label reflects our initial poster style using blacks and vibrant colors 1.) to call attention to the issue (the water crisis) and 2.) to appeal to our target audience (active college students) in addition to keeping it simple and to the point. The inside of the label depicts a dry/cracked desert scene to build onto this idea that without water life ceases to exist and become part one of a two series invitation unit. The front of the bottle presents the user with a hard - hitting fact and then leads the user to the back of the bottle ( connecting front and back label) to present a call to action for the user to get involved and join us in the pursuit of assisting this world crisis. The connecting of the front and back label illustrates a direct correlation between the problem and our efforts... hopefully!

Our Dream Team

We were faced with a problem that was far too big for our small group to take on without help, so we took the initiative to contact several outside sources. The individuals that we approached are regarded as experts in their particular field of study or work. This included Front Line Delivery Experts, Users, and Content Experts - ranging from college students to professors to scientists.

With the help of our Dream Team, GreenHat Creative will have an outsiders look on the issue of the global water crisis throughout the duration of our project. Not only will our team members be able to bring insight to the table, but also help to generate new ideas that will be essential in implementing our final solution.

Problem Statement

After our initial phase of research, we began to formulate a problem statement. We had decided we needed "Actionable solutions for responsible water use within central Indiana". As we began to work towards addressing this problem, we began to find a few flaws in our problem statement.

We then sought out to redefine the problem through more intensive research and discussion. We weighed out the options from different possible directions by using charting tools and we were then able to see what matters most. In the US, we consume more water than anywhere else in the world. We have never really experienced in our lives sever issues related to water. Because of this, people in the US are naive to the water crisis. We decided we needed to find a way to "Engage and inform our audience of the global water crisis and inspire them to donate resources."

Feeling that we might have had a good grasp on the issue, we began to research our audience. Through marketing analytical studies, we determined college age students had the most potential for evoking change. We went out into the field to get to know our audience a little bit better— and that's when we really found the problem. Two common themes began to arise: people are either completely unaware of the water crisis or they're just too busy to stop and care.

We then decided to focus on the problem, "College students are too busy to focus on the water crisis."

Researching The Water Crisis

A large part of our semester has been devoted to research — researching local and global water issues, water uses, users and the infinite number of other factors contributing to the global water crisis.

After more traditional research — databases, books, magazines, the internets, etc., we shut the laptops and headed out into the real-world to see what people knew or thought about the issue.

Out of nearly one hundred people interviewed on IUPUI's campus, we found two common themes arising: people are either completely unaware of the water crisis or they're somewhat aware but too busy to care.

Since the Aspen Design Challenge brief already states that people are unaware of the global water crisis, we decided to focus on people being too busy to care.

We're now developing innovative ways of informing them of the water crisis and inspiring them to take action.

Designing Water's Future

This is the brief from the AIGA Aspen Design Challenge outlining the water crisis.