Cigarette Bin Solutions - design interventions

I have continued with my target intervention, creating an attachment for bins. This uses a circular design was made for bins in a nearby park. I redesigned the appearance of the piece so it is more pleasing and uses a colour combination better associated with cigarettes, of orange and black. 


I left the design on the bin and a day later it is still there, however it is difficult to actually capture it in use as after waiting a short while no-one smoking ever walked by. 

Cigarette Solutions - design interventions

Due to most of my previous interventions having quite a serious undertone, I have decided to implement a fun theme. In this case basing it around an interactive target game, taking inspiration from the boards with holes cut for kids to kick footballs through. The obvious difference being it's for cigarettes to be flicked through, and into a bin or waste bag of sorts. 

I have only created the board itself rather than the bin, which could be an extra attachment if created. However, after testing the design I have decided that my next intervention should be a specific form to fit onto existing bins. The main issue is there are barely any specific cigarette bins (clearly emphasising my cause) and the few there are are quite small. Therefore my next piece would render the chosen bin (it's attached to) just for cigarettes. 

Cigarette Solutions - design interventions

I have noticed that my interventions for cigarette littering all lean towards creating awareness, which is key but would be more effective if I could tie in a possible solution for the issue. Therefore I have continued with my theme of wildlife and based my design around a fish bowl. The idea being for smokers to throw their butts into the bowl of water, emphasising the fact that if they were to throw their cigarettes onto the street they could end up in waterways and harm or kill marine life.


The piece is situated by a bus stop as it seemed an appropriate place where smokers are likely to light-up and get their attention while they are waiting. 

Cigarettes - design interventions

I have decided to focus on the one area of litter, in this case I've chosen cigarettes since they are the most frequently found item of discarded rubbish. 


The designs focus around the statistics, as people are aware of litter just not necessarily the hard facts. Many smokers probably don't know that cigarette butts are toxic waste because of the high level of harmful chemicals left in the filters. However, these facts alone aren't too likely to provoke smokers so I have based it around the wildlife that cigarette ends can harm or kill. This is to encourage some form of sympathy and consideration, as smokers seemingly innocent disregard has consequences on other living things. 

These were left on the ground intentionally to catch people's gaze, however because of their size they aren't too evident and would inadvertently contribute to littering. Therefore for my next intervention I decided to make it far more noticeable. I based it on the fact that 122 tons of cigarette litter being dropped. But the statistic, although shockingly high doesn't provoke enough of a response. As a result I related it to a common 'known', in this case elephants. Featuring the piece on a life size male elephant painted onto a street wall, in order to really instigate some thought and create a clear comparison.

Cigarettes and Paper - design interventions

My next idea to publicise the amount of litter was through cigarette butts, as i found they take 12 years to biodegrade and cigarette related rubbish contributes to 70% of rubbish in UK towns. I decided to use the waste items themselves to create the piece which, was quite frankly a pretty disgusting job although you'll be glad to know i did use gloves!


The video below shows the making of my intervention followed by the final pictures, illustrating the fact that 120 tons of cigarette litter is dropped every day in the UK. Looking back over the design i under estimated the amount of butts i'd collected and could have produce a larger scale outcome and i may try and revisit it as i progress.

My following intervention focuses on paper as an issue of litter. I decided to make a small, yet reasonably life-size tree out of scraps of thrown-out paper and card, using the scale of it to help emphasise the problem. I believe this could work well as a series, ideally 6 pieces to get across that fact that the average family throws away the equivalent of 6 trees worth of paper a year. If i decide to continue with paper as my chosen form of litter, I might try combining interventions with trees themselves.

Litter - design interventions

I have a new project to create 15 design interventions within the next 3 weeks based upon a news article. I was reading about litter in London and thought it a positive one to create new forms of awareness for. 


These are my initial interventions, using the street as its main location.

The main idea was simply to highlight the litter dropped by people, surprisingly a condom was left which, is probably one of if not the worst thing to litter. I chose yellow as my colour as it's associated with warning and therefore related rather well.


I did however, find myself getting frustrated when taking the pictures as the rubbish kept blowing around, but thought just the circles alone worked well showing where someone had thrown their litter. This could be quite effective seeing streets dotted with yellow rings, with the obvious intention to be as little as possible.

This was my following intervention to write bold messages on the pavement, not dissimilar to those 'STOP' writings on the road. I felt by personifying the street it would make people more inclined to at least stop and take notice if not act. It is certainly more effective than the signs left by officials saying 'do not litter £50 fine' as they simply seem less considerate and almost warrant some form of rebellion. 


I did originally want to spray the message and although i thought it would be better as a set design, i did also think that to some it may seem itself as litter or graffiti despite the good intent. Therefore i opted for chalk because of its temporary and less intrusive display. 

Exploiting Context - typography article

This was a project given to us by our tutor Phil Baines. We had to create a maximum 10 page article with given text, photographs and page dimensions of 242 x 170mm, testing our ability to utilise space with the provided information.


I created mine using a 3 column grid for the images and captions and 4 column grid for the main text and footnotes. 

Visual language - test videos

These videos are tests i did for my last project, exploring and creating visual language. Through my research into existing or previous means of communication i found that i predominately looked at forms of silent communication that featured around the body. 

I was pulled into the idea of lip reading as everyone uses the speakers mouth as a clue for what is being said. We recognise the mouths' position (viseme) for certain phonemes that are produced. I wanted to explore the possibility of creating a visual language that could be universally understood and began documenting the visemes we produce in relation to the phonetic alphabet. 

I decided on a quote to base my message around, "think like a wise man but communicate in the language of the people." Relating to my concept of communicating in a language for all to understand. 

When studying the videos quite meticulously - going through frame by frame - i discovered the over subtle hints we give when producing phonemes. These were features such as throat movement, check inflation, dropping of the chin etc. While my ideas only focus around the mouth, i may later explore methods on conveying a wider view of the other aspects we use to create phonemes. 

Timeless - book design

Timeless is a book depicting an incident a couple of years ago, where i was hit by a car and my watch was ruined. What made this more personal to me, was that the watch was given to me by Ron (my mum's former partner) who died not long before.


This book is a tribute to Ron, which captures the watch's meaning to me and all Ron's sayings about it, reflecting back over the event. I gave the book the title of Timeless as it plays on the pun of the destroyed watch, but that my feelings towards the Ron and his association to the watch still go on. 


This is my first design, as I'm currently still fiddling with aspects of it, so expect to see an updated version posted.

Winter photos

With all the snow we had i felt i had to take some pictures, here are just a few...