Proposal

     My aim is to tackle the stigma surrounding mental health. I aim to do this through quirky characters and illustrations. My target audience is 13 - 20 year olds. I hope for my work to reach out to young people who may be suffering with some form of mental illness and may not know where to turn. My quirky characters and illustrations will confront mental health issues and be a link to where sufferers can find help. My work will be designed for badges, posters, t - shirts and short comic strips. I feel these are the best outcomes for my work. It suits my aims of raising awareness and reaching out to people so they know where to look for help.  The style I am working in is a loose cartoon style. I hope for this to allow for my work to be eye catching and sometimes humorous without evoking too much emotion. This is because I don’t want to evoke empathy. Instead, I want my work to be an eye catching and quirky bridge between mental health sufferers and the help that is out there. I plan for my work to stare mental health in the face and express that no one should feel ashamed or alone. Some of my work is going to contain tips and information. My work will boldly tackle the stigma surrounding mental health and hopefully make young people more aware that mental health issues are common. I feel that it’s important to make young people aware of the changes they can make in their lifestyle that will help support good mental health. My ultimate goal is for my work to end up being used by mental health charities and organisations, in schools and/or colleges as posters, badges and to illustrate information leaflets.

Work process (Time plan)

Every two weeks (timescale will vary) I will create four tasks that correspond to the list below depending on what stage I’m at. This will happen from January until May and then I will be finalising my work and printing the final images. I will then plan out another time plan according to where I’m at in May.

1. Relevant observational drawings

2. Research mental health information (charities, organisations, tips, causes, treatments, common mental illnesses that effect young people etc)

3. Character design and mini comic strip planning

4. Research a relevant artist/techniques for posters/badges how to make your work stand out/styles AND/OR processes/how to print t-shirts etc


With this project I aim to:

1. Tackle the stigma surrounding mental health by creating quirky, fictional characters that represent various mental health issues. In doing so I also hope to; help sufferers not feel alone, promote positive thinking and inform sufferers of hints and tips to good mental health.

2. Reach out to young people who may not know what options there are in terms of discussing and learning about mental health. I'd like to do this via posters, badges and leaflets. I'd like to team up with a mental health charity or organisation and for my work to promote the help they can offer.