Mental Health alongside the Creative Mind

DESIGN FUTURES MENTAL HEALTH ALONGSIDE THE CREATIVE MIND

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he future is an indeinite period lacking limits and certainty but in the context of this report, the future will be deined as three to ive years in contemporary de‐ sign practice. he future of graphic de‐ sign and other creative disciplines can be forecasted by designers and creatives who have multiple overlapping disci‐ plinary features. Oten referred to multi‐ disciplinary. his idea is supported by Butler (2013) that artists and designers need to go beyond their practice and 'be forward thinking', going against normal‐ ity will allow a Graphic Designer to cre‐ ate links and connections between tech‐ nology, design, and science.

In the next three to ive years, contempo‐ rary designers will use such tools as fore‐ casting and geo-mapping to tackle issues from being a freelance designer, to work‐ ing in a studio, and working in collabo‐ ration with other contemporary design‐ ers. Designers may also tackle the taboo around mental health, which can effect any age, gender, and, creative, this is an ongoing issue that can have damaging effects on student designers and working professionals. Currently mental health effects around 1 in 4 people in the UK and alongside designers the statistics could be higher.

Unemployment is also linked to mental health along with suicide rates, clinical

Fig. 1. Mental Health he Facts (2012) and psychosocial factors linking to the drop in employment which leaves people feeling stigmatised as they are being la‐ beled as 'unemployed'. 'It found that be‐ tween 2000 and 2011, one in ive of an estimated 233,000 annual suicides were linked to unemployment. (NHS 2015).

Having a career while suffering from mental health can put a lot of pressure and demands on a person, it is suggested to be difficult to juggle.his is a current issue many practitioners and Graphic Designers are facing. his dissertation will also discuss trend forcasting, which is achieved by multiple sources and themes being researched to ind a poten‐ tial future outcome, it is affective and beneicial to companies and Graphic De‐ signers as they can predict sales and trends that they could use to build future sales and proits. Millennials and Geotargeting are another two topics, they are very important especially to trend for‐

DESIGN FUTURES

casting agencies. Millennials are social and digital natives, they have a lot of in‐ luence between peers, and can build strong relationships with loyal brands.

Geo-targeting comes into effect when a brand uses a location tool to target a spe‐ ciic audience.

Converdge (2013) describes the trend of graphic design to be constantly shiting between minimalistic designs and styles to more experimental and intricate, Ac‐ cording to Creative bloq (2015) by doing this it can make a designer more tradi‐ tional and creative. Being acentric and saying 'yes' could create a whole new generation of graphic designers. he fu‐ ture of graphic design is also considered to be acquiescent, advocating for what is on trend.

Burn's (2015) theory emphasizes that for the last couple of decades the leading trend is Swiss style, which is elegant and simple, yet now seems to be outdated and overused in typography and graphic design on the whole.

He argues it perhaps is not very original and designers need to try and not con‐ form. his is not accepted by Terror (2009), who takes the stance that having a more deined, innovative, clear and bold type completely redeines the foun‐ dation of a movement which was com‐ pletely communicated and exported by most designers around the world. It is possible to infer from this that having a foundation like the Swiss movement does not have to relect in all of a cre‐ ative's designs or interdisciplinary fea‐ tures, but they can get a lot of inspiration and fabric which can guide and structure a designer's inal outcome.

DO CURRENT DESIGNERS NEED TO THINK ABOUT THE FUTURE OF DESIGN?

According to Lagerstedt (2015) the fu‐ ture is constantly changing, it adapts and relects the current and changing trends and upcoming technology emerging in the industry. Trend forecasting, or trend analysis, explores multiple perspectives and environments analysing trends. Fu‐ ture casting is the systematic process which futurists, who are trained creatives in this interdisciplinary ield, forecasting companies, and associations use when looking at future trends. Intel is another company who uses a futurist, Brian David Johnson, to mold their future con‐ sumer needs. Knapp (2011) concurs with this view that it is not just merely pre‐ dicting the future, it is about looking at what people want and how they will communicate and interact using upcom‐ ing computer technologies. Developing a vision of the future that can be molded and shaped, will further the technology process completely having the con‐ sumers in mind.

Fig. 2. Zürich Town Hall Poster (1955)

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TREND FORCASTING According to Lauretta Roberts, a direc‐ tor at WGSN, trend forecasting is the study of past patterns and statistics. It is considered to be highly effective and used in the fashion industry and other creative interdisciplinary features includ‐ ing car development, food trends, emerging technology and design. Inno‐ vative thinking along with technology can alter and completely shape new in‐ dustries which not only affect culture but the social structure (British Vogue, 2015). Creative Industries (2013) em‐ phasizes the importance of trend fore‐ casting, as it is the collection and obser‐ vation of facts and intuition that helps graphic designers who are employed or freelance understand the growth and fall of a business. It ranges over subjects in‐ cluding art and science to cars and tech‐ nology. he intuition is based upon the past and current trends, and ideas. A fu‐ turist can look at inspiration as far as denim shirts to ilms, it completely varies depending on what area they are re‐ searching into. Fig.3. shows Alexa Chung during her fashion investigation. Alexa Chung, a fashion model and publisher, examines the fashion trend forecast in‐ dustry by investigating WGSN, a leading company that looks at all types of trends, including long term, short term, cyclical, and seasonal. It does this by researching information and basing its indings on a range of factors from street fashion to cultural shits, this being done, WGSN can build a database about the consumer and their needs, by doing this, they can forecast a trend which may happen or has already happened, however it may be scientiic but unexpected events can al‐ ways occur, this could be social shits or changes in society, this can disrupt a pat‐ tern and, therefore, change the predicted outcome (British Vogue, 2015). Metcalf (n.d) supports this idea suggesting bas‐ ing its indings on an irregularity or a mere variation might not be successful and just inevitable turning points. his could suggest that trend forecasting can have both a positive and negative ef‐ fect on how designers live and work. On one hand, this can be seen as putting limitations on designers, especially in graphics due to consumers wanting sim‐ ilar types of designs or styles, this could be seen as graphic designers mimicking each other's work. It can snub creativity by having consumers follow or attach themselves onto one type of style or trend, contrastingly, it keeps the designer

informed and able to sell to the con‐ sumer. Creative Industries (2013) ex‐ plains how it can help designers by giv‐ ing them common knowledge of what is in trend and what sells, this can make or break a designer and sometimes taking a risk is not worth it when there is a lot of competition with other practitioners and companies. his is especially difficult for freelance Graphic Designers and design agencies during events including the economical crisis, inding work can be difficult.

WGSN (2015) establish that they look not only at upcoming trends but at con‐ sumer issues. By doing this, they offer more services, giving their client a strate‐ gy to target problematic areas in their business. hese patterns and indings set the backdrop to how fashion and other industries are represented. his being said, it is not all forecasted by WGSN, a lot of inluences are spread peer to peer usually by digital natives, known as gen‐ eration millennials. (D&AD, 2014) herefore it could be considered that in

skills, which can lead to further issues including social anxiety. his can then impact on their daily life and change they way they communicate, face to face interactions can become difficult, this is can under develop their cognitive skills and deep thinking capabilities. his the‐ ory has been developed upon by NHS (2015) that social anxiety can effects common activities used on a daily basis, limited eye contact , speaking to people on the phone or speaking to someone who holds authority can be difficult. his could effect designers who suffer with anxiety as one of the issues is the fear of being criticized and negative feedback, this could happen if they are in a meet‐

Solomon (2014) describes how millenni‐ als are a generation born between 1982 and 2000, they are considered to be fun‐ damentally divergent in how they shop and are quite unique due to their views on advertising and brands. hey are so‐ cially native consumers as, they have grown up in the digital realm and are very socially connected. hey may be cynical towards brands and believe that some are dishonest and, therefore, rely on peers and family opinions to make a brand credible. Once they ind a brand that is credible and trustworthy, they be‐ come very loyal. he loyalty is expressed through mouth to mouth recognition to family and peers and visual updates on applications including Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Studies on millennials and increased use of social media by An‐ derson et al (2012) explain that millenni‐ als can suffer from implications when using social media, it can hold a negative perception. Cyber space can oten be‐ come the reality for millennials, this has an inopportune effect on their social

One view, expressed by Solomon (2014) is that millennials not only use their phones for communicating but for shop‐ ping, socializing, education, and map‐ ping. his makes them want a device and apps that are simple and easy to use, if they are not simple, they can lose interest

Fig. 3. Alexa-Video-4j-Vogue (2015)

MILLENNIALS future generations, trend forecasting could be recognised and recorded through social platforms and media.

ety, to beneit their surroundings and en‐ vironment. his is quite similar to a so‐ cially active graphic designer, being so‐ cially active and aware effects their disci‐ pline, and how they work. heir designs usually focus and intend to be helpful or beneicial to a speciic group or audience. his could be aimed at anyone from women to children to the elderly.

ing with a client or employer.

Protein, along with WGSN, is another company that helps track and under‐ stand multiple audiences for existing brands. hey do this by having a national trend survey. In line with this view D&AD(2014) supports that targeting generation millennials is harder for com‐ panies as they now have to learn and adapt to new ideas on how to sell to a so‐ cially native consumer. Socially natives are usually attached to their mobile phone device or being on social media.

Building and creating communities that structure real and solid relationships are the only way that the consumer will stay loyal to the brand. 'brands, when they get it right, can connect with you, but some brands are doing it really really wrong and we unlike them' (D&AD, 2014: 7 min 04) herefore, the solution could be that brands need to become socially ac‐ tive not just following their consumers but being aware of other competitive brands and how they interact with their customers.

According to Talen(2008:109) socially active people usually participate in soci‐

in that brand. It could mean brands have to work harder against other competitors. Furthermore, brands have to now use a number of different plat‐ forms to sell to their consumer this is called omnichannel which means multi‐ ple platforms or channels in which to ad‐ vertise that oten creates an experience for the consumer. It is oten used to ad‐ vertise to millennials. Millennials are vi‐ sual curators that consume images. See‐ ing an advert in a number of different channels is seen as a more successful so‐ lut i on e s p e c i a l l y ai m e d at t h i s generation, as they create their own digi‐ tal self image. hey create a digital self image by using websites and applications including Pinterest and Instagram, this builds a character or persona that other people can view and look at. According to Creative Industries (2013), Om‐ nichannel is a huge trend at the moment for retailers, as it connects not only on multiple channels but through different experiences, including buying and browsing. Companies like Tesco and Domino's have started to experiment with adverts that come to life and move when the consumer clicks on the link. his has been challenged by Bolton (2015) who argues that omnichannel does not engage with all platforms but causes spam for the consumer by having an inconsistent and fragmented message

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on different channels. his does not in‐ crease brand awareness and it makes it harder for the business to understand and connect to the consumer as an indi‐ vidual person.

herefore, It could be suggested that brands need to take an alternative ap‐ proach to advertising. Using omnichan‐ nels can be successful and it has proven to be effective when aimed at millennials, however, brands need to consider that they have to build relation‐ ships with their consumer. he brand should create a community that the con‐ sumer can be a part of which makes them feel important and valuable to the company. Collaborating also helps the brand engage and make the consumer feel as they are in partnership. Avoiding this issues or problem could prevent having a loyal customer. Another way a brand could promote their social aware‐ ness is through Geo-marketing.

GEO MARKETING According to GFK (2015), geo marketing is a location based tool that targets, sells, and send messages across to a speciic audience, either based on the geographic location or age. It can pin point success‐ ful areas either regionally or globally. It is now highly used due to it being cost ef‐ fective, a user could send out a geo mes‐ sage and it could potentially increase revenue and sales. his can have both a positive and negative effect, when a brand or campaign target a speciic area and audience, it may lose out on revenue from other consumers who are not being targeted. herefore, a freelance Graphic Designers could apply this to practice as it is im‐ portant to make themselves socially aware to target their audience they are selling too. hey could do this by having multiple accounts and platforms that sells and promotes their work and them‐ selves as a designer. A blog is a useful tool that keeps consumers and fans up‐ dated on a daily basis. his theory has been built upon by Brammer (2015) suggesting it creates relevant messages and products to a spe‐ ciic consumer, localised advertising also helps the surrounding brands in a target‐ ed area. However, this is not only used by brands but it can be used by estate agents and politicians. 'Targeting con‐ gressional districts makes sure ads are only seen by voters in that area. his also means the competition can target areas where they need more voters.' An alter‐ native view expressed also by Brammer (2015) demonstrates that retailers or brands may ight and clash against each other when their stores are in close prox‐

DESIGN FUTURES

imity, this causes a brand's campaign to become segmented. Hoy (2014) contin‐ ues that for brands to avoid this problem they could consider and try to use tools such as geo fencing. Geo fencing essen‐ tially targets consumers who are in close proximity to the retailer but not actually in that store. It could send messages that could include direction or special offers to whoever is nearby. Companies that beneit from this tool include Belk, a large family owned department store. It sends out time sensitive coupons to cus‐ tomers near by. he customers who re‐ spond to this coupon are usually reward‐ ed, as their information gets added to a mobile marketing database. he more the consumer shops, the more offers they will be given. his means Bulk can get an effective and more relevant understand‐ ing of its consumers. 'Geo-fencing gives the customer a much more personalized interaction with brands by offering them timely, relevant offers via their mobile devices' (Hoy, 2014) his could conclude that the technology in geo marketing needs to be redeined, it essentially is an organisational tool.

When used correctly, it can build a con‐ sumer data base with relevant informa‐ tion that can be used to increase future sales and also to learn about each indi‐ vidual person to build a consumer/brand relationship. If this happens it can drive customer loyalty. However, if it is not used effectively, it is useless for the con‐ sumer and can ruin a brand's campaign.

Graphic designers could consider this, especially when freelancing or working with a design agency. When applying to practice, a Graphic Designer could target a speciic group or even a speciic time period, for example, Christmas or Easter and try and sell products especially for that holiday. Although targeting a specif‐ ic group could be effective in that period, in the long run, this could be seen as in‐ effective and therefore lacks longevity as geo marketing is usually used for short periods of time by retailers and brands.

A graphic designers could use trend forecasting along with geo marketing to create an effective campaign, when sell‐ ing designs but would need to consider that this needs to be done on a regular basis to receive intended sales results.

Smiling Wolf are a Liverpool and Lon‐ don based graphic design agency and consultancy. hey are currently working alongside students while creating a Bina‐ ry Festival corporate identity and logo. hey are considering using tools like geo marketing and aiming a lot of the de‐ signs at millennials. Millennials can be seen as important and change how de‐ signers produce work. Brands and de‐ signers always have millennials in mind due to their tendency's to view brands and advertisements differently than oth‐ er generations, and by doing this, is it what makes them socially aware. eMar‐

Fig. 4. Bond Brand Loyalty (2014) keter(2014) draws attention to the im‐ portance of millennials to businesses and banks as they increase proits and brand loyalty. From Fig. 1. below, you can see that millennials interact and are more engaged with companies, purely to re‐ ceive more deals and offers even if they actually didn't need to buy any of the products.

SMILING WOLF

Fig. 5. number. 940_meeting-table (2015)

During visits to Smiling Wolf 's studio the students had meetings every couple of weeks, with Simon, Company Director, and Michael, Designer evaluate how the students had developed their work and designs through each stage of the binary brief. Smiling Wolf is associ‐ ated with a number of studios and festi‐ vals from TypeToken to Desginival. he Smiling Wolf team specialises in a broad range of design styles which suits its large list of diverse clients. 'we create ideas and develop brands with personali‐ ty and resonance.' (Smiling Wolf, 2015)

Figure. 1 shows Smiling Wolf 's studio space in Liverpool, the table is where the

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MENTAL HEALTH meetings are usually held. For a student designer and even established designers, it can be quite intimidating being in a studio full of working successful profes‐ sional creatives, judging and analyzing your designs. Creative Bloq (2014) agrees with this statement, suggesting that prioritising is important and essen‐ tial when being a Graphic Designer, from meetings to deadlines, stress can have a major effect on mental health.

'Bottom line: reduce your stress and you'll be a better designer.' For people who suffer or have been diagnosed with depression and or anxiety, scenarios like these can trigger emotions and make meetings and designing quite stressful.

DEPRESSION AND ANXIETY NHS (2014) describes depression as a feeling of sadness, hopelessness, and loneliness, which is a constant feeling that can last for weeks or months at a time and It can effect anyone, at any age. he symptoms of mental health difficul‐ ties can be psychological and physical, and the symptoms can vary from bad sleeping patterns, aches and pains, to

having a low sex drive and loss of ap‐ petite. Depression can be as mild to hav‐ ing a low mood but at its most severe de‐ pression can make somebody feel suici‐ dal with very destructive thoughts. NHS (2014) states that depression is common‐ ly linked with anxiety. Anxiety is a feel‐ ing that occurs and happens to most people who are either going through something stressful or feeling worried however when somebody chronically suffers from being anxious and nervous, it can affect their daily life and wellbeing.

GAD, which means generalised anxiety disorder is oten used to describe people who suffer from chronical anxiety 'GAD is a common condition estimated to af‐ fect about 1 in every 25 people in the UK.' (NHS, 2014) Mental health foundation (n.d) empha‐ sizes the shock of the recently published statistics based around depression and anxiety. Nearly a quarter of the popula‐ tion in Britain experience some form of mental illness or disorder, and during the course of a year, another 1 out of 4 people will suffer from multiple mental health issues. here is a theory that different moods and feelings can be represented by colours', this was studied and published

by BMC, Medical Research Methodolo‐ gy (2012). It concludes that this study could help doctors who are dealing with people who struggle to communicate

Fig. 7. he colors we feel (2010) and instead of verbal feedback, patients could select a colour. In the study 30% of people who were known to suffer from either depression or anxiety picked grey and dark blue to represent how they feel when suffering from their mental illness.

(Pappas, 2010) his can be seen in Fig. 2. of the igure that represents depression is quite dark blue and the body looks unattached and inactive. A similar view is held by Tomasulo (2015) that not only is colour associated with how people feel, but where on the body that the feelings occur and what part of the body feels ac‐ tive or inactive during these periods. Ac‐ cording to this view people feel a general overall increased responsive emotion that takes place all over the body when they are happy yet when someone feels anxious, nervous, or depressed the body seems to deactivate feelings. his could infer that not only do people associate colours with their emotions, but it has been studied that each emo‐ tion can make certain parts of the body activate and deactivate. his could sug‐ gest reasons why people who suffer with mental issues, including depression and anxiety could feel uninspired and unmo‐ tivated in their daily life and for a graph‐ ic designer, unable to successfully com‐ plete design work and projects. his also could be physically manifested through design work effecting the colour pallet used by the graphic designer. his being carried out could have a negative impact and effect on the designer's work, espe‐ cially if it goes against a speciic brief.

Fig. 6. Answers (n.d)

According to Adams (2014), Simon Kya‐ ga, a Senior Consultant in Psychiatry

and Researcher at the Karolinska Insti‐ tute in Stockholm, Sweden, was part of the research team that undertook the largest study on the link between mental illness and creativity. During the study, the team tracked over 1.2 million Swedes and their relatives, the results proposed that creatives working in the industry, this includes not only designers but dancers, poets, writers, singers, photog‐ raphers, and more, are 8% more likely to suffer with disorders like Bipolar. Writers alone were '121% more likely to suffer from the condition'. he statistics have found that creativity along with mental illness could be genetic and inherited t h rou g h f am i ly ge n e s , t h i s c an concludes, that people in the creative in‐ dustry are more likely to have family members and relatives that suffer from 'schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, anorex‐ ia and autism.'

People that do inherit this gene can ei‐ ther foster creativity alone without the burden of relating illnesses, however others may inherit strokes of depression and anxiety. 'Clearly some people suffer for their art, and clearly some art stems from suffering.' (Adams, 2015) his idea has been developed by Jimenez (2012) that when working as a freelance Graphic Designer freedom and instabili‐ ty run hand in hand and issues can oc‐ cur which may lead to having mental health problems including the feeling of isolation, loneliness, and fear. A major problem could the inancial aspect, not having a secure job or reliable position can be a stressful burden. his can effect a designer's workload, it can be seen as

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DESIGN FUTURES

not been linked to creativity, during pre‐ vious art movements, artist seem to emotionally connect to suffering, and engage with that negative emotional pain either through the artists own adversity or others around them.

Sample (2015) believes that Van Goth expressed his mental health and demons through his paintings and famously his self portrait which he painted in 1889. It held details of his bandaged ear, which is thought that he had cut off with a blade.

Samuel (2009), on the other hand, argues that historians support the theory that he cut off his own ear however new studios claim that friend and artist of Van Goth,

As proposed by Gilbert (2009) the au‐ thor of the internationally best seller book 'Eat Pray Love' states that creatives as a whole group of people are portrayed to have a career that is likely to be doomed and looked down upon by soci‐ ety, and have a reputation to be mentally unstable. What could make the situation worse is that a lot of society seem to be comfortably and are able to ignore that creativity and suffering is normal and apart of the creative process. his, for the over 500 years has bred creative people to be afraid of having success, and this could push designers to the mental limit

Fig. 8. A woman addicted to gambling, Portraits of the Insane (1791-1824)

ROMANTIC ERA difficult to divide personal time with work time. Another disadvantage of be‐ ing a freelancer, especially when not col‐ laborating is having no companionship, this can lead to no motivation or pro‐ ductivity. his could infer that being a creative, freelance or not, can suggest someone can suffer from anxiety and, or depression down to factors like fear, this could be the fear of failure or the fear of not being accepted or liked by peers and clients. One strategy to dealing with neg‐ ative thoughts and issues is to think that the creativity someone has, is another being, or a different person that lives in‐ side or along side with you. Conversely NHS (2012) states that in a report by BBC News, nearly all studies and reports have been biased and there is no factual evidence to suggest that creatives and people in the creative industry are any more likely to suffer from mental health conditions than the average healthy per‐ son. his being said, it is then reported that psychiatric condition have for many decades been linked to creativity, howev‐ er the only liable indings by the NHS found that writers and authors are twice more likely to suffer with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder along with depres‐ sion and anxiety. 'With the exception of

bipolar disorder, they found no associa‐ tion between being creative and having a psychiatric disorder' (NHS, 2012)

Jones, J (2015) examines the Romantic Era which was the time period between 1800 to 1850, that the severe state of suf‐ fering was used hand in hand, by artists and poets. Self relection on ones own state of mental health caused a lot of artists to be attracted to the suffering that they were feeling. Jean-Louis heodore Gericault, Romanticism artist, had a lot of empathy for people suffering with mental health conditions and por‐ trayed and depicted his friend, Dr Eti‐ enne-Jean Georget, 10 mentally unstable patients. In ig. below, Gericault wanted to challenge the stereotype against men‐ tal health and show human compassion.

'Gericault portrays mental illness as a part of the human condition that he himself - as an artist whose paintings dwell on death and violence - clearly feels close to.' (Jones, 2015)

his could infer that mental health has been acknowledged and recorded for many decades and though it may have

Fig. 9. Self Portrait with Bandaged Ear (1889) Paul Gauguin cut off Van Goth's ear with his sword during a dispute and the breakdown of their relationship. Gau‐ guin was apparently living with Van Goth in his ''Yellow house'' in Arles. his is too argued by experts in Hamburg that Gauguin had a unhappy stay living with Van Goth and the he disappeared before the incident occurred. Historians profess that Van Goth suffered from seizures but 'he had not gone mad at the stage' and he might have made up the story that he cut off his ear to protect his friend, Gauguin.

(Samuel, 2009)

where the thing they love to do, their job, is driving them to the point of mad‐ ness. One way this has been dealt with before by Ancient Greece and Rome is to manage emotional risks and put that emotional weight onto other being, which was called a Damon by the Greeks and Genius by the Romans. One way to challenge this could be to teach future generations and current tormented con‐ temporary artists and designers to not be afraid to love what they do, and not be afraid to not have success or lose success and never be able to ascend to that

DESIGN FUTURES

height of success ever again. To put this action in place, designers could separate themselves from their creativity just as the Romans and Greeks did, either as an‐ other being , a creative god, or an unimaginable creativity source given on loan to the designer or artist. his could take the ego away from the designer but also the shame, doubt, and fear that comes along with the creative mental process. By doing this it creates a protec‐ tive psychological barrier from anxiety and fear, and once the anxiety is gone, all you have to do is your job, and push yourself enough to know when you have had enough. 'Sheer human love and stubbornness to keep showing up' (Gilbert, 2009) his is supported by Burkeman (2015) who expresses the same view as Gilbert (2009) that creatives naturally provokes fear, and dealing with this issue shouldn't be taken at face value and maybe instead of being afraid of the fail‐ ure to fully embrace it, and love it,

CONCLUSION maybe not to accepted it, but letting it be apart of the designers creative process and journey. A similar view is held by Christensen (2013) that graphic design‐ ers and other creatives seem to suffer from unstable mental health could stem from their creative thought process, an eye for the slightest detail and experi‐ ences or memories, good and bad is of‐ ten transferred into designers work. his obsessive thinking pattern is called ru‐ mination. Rumination means the repeti‐ tive thinking and analysation of a emo‐ tional or painful situation, this usually happens continuously. 'Creative thinkers tend to fall into the latter group, re-play‐ ing events over and over again to better understand them.' (Christensen, 2013) Another theory by Ghadirian, A (2009) explains that creatives have a tendency to investigate and reexamine irrational and rational thoughts, this extensive thought process not only challenges a designers negative thoughts and memories of suf‐ fering, it can assist other people who are too suffering, mentally and physically. he challenge and negative effect with creativity, is it can cause a designer to try and push limits and exceed set expecta‐ tions, this can have a knock on effect mentally and physically to the designer, issues including lack of food, and sleep and limited or no social interaction. Iso‐ lation can then lead to anxiety and de‐ pression. 'Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experi‐ ence of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.' (Keller, n.d)

his could infer that the creative process

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could be to blame for creatives and de‐ signers link to mental health. Rumina‐ tion oten occurs to people who look for detail and depth, this not only effects the designers present work, but could change the outcome of future projects, which could have a negative knock-on effect on their career, especially if the de‐ signer works freelance and depends i‐ nancially on paid jobs. Designers need to evaluate their current introspection and evaluate what is best for their mental and physical state, by doing this they can cre‐ ate healthy goals and limits, which can then make them strive as a successful creative, in an industry full of self-doubt and competition.

Trend forecasting has multiple advan‐ tages for creatives and graphic designers, the beneits include being socially aware and active, It keeps the designers current with trends and aware of successful brands and company's campaigns. hey use tools including geo-mapping and geo marketing targeting generations, such as millennials, to ind out their clients needs and wants.

A theory discussed by Wax (2012) ex‐ plained that mental health is an ongoing issue and it needs to be addressed by ev‐ eryone, not only creatives. A lot of peo‐ ple who suffer from mental health issues carry the stigma, which can cause a lot of shame as they don't have any physical scars to prove their pain and suffering.

Depression and anxiety can change a person motivation, creative thought pro‐ cess, and general wellbeing, this can af‐ fect their daily life and work prospects. he solution to mental health issues is to target the stigma, challenge social media to promote and give light to a hugely avoided and shadowed subject. In Fig. 7. below you can see how humour is used in Ruby Wax's mental health awareness posters. Humour can breakdown the un‐ comfortable negative feelings towards mental health. Ruby Wax uses this tech‐ nique a lot when she carries out cam‐ paigns for 'Time To Change' who are a leading organisation in the awareness of mental health.

When mental health is more openly publicized and discussed, it is then that resources can be properly used to focus on people and creatives. Another solu‐ tion is to help designers cope with the challengers that come along with their creativity, and use ideas explained by Gilbert and Burkeman. he ideas talks about treating your genius or creativity as another being, doing this takes the pressures of failure and negativity away from the designer, therefore taking away the stress and anxiety. However, more re‐ search needs to go into this ield, consid‐ ering further challengers and looking at previous patterns of the negative effects of mental health. hen have the appro‐ priate resources to be put in place, at col‐ leges, universities, and creative studios to

ig. 10. Ruby Wax press ads (n.d) help designers who may be suffering with mental health problems have the correct and necessary support.

HARVARD REFERENCING Adams, W (2015) he dark side of cre‐ ativity: Depression + anxiety x madness = genius? [online] Available at: http:// edition.cnn.com/2014/01/22/world/thedark-side-of-creativity-vincent-vangogh/ (Accessed 2nd December 2015) Anderson, J et al (2012) MILLENNIALS WILL BENEFIT AND SUFFER DUE TO THEIR HYPERCONNECTED LIVES [online] Available at: http:// www.pewinternet.org/2012/02/29/mainindings-teens-technology-and-humanpotential-in-2020/ (Accessed 15 Decem‐ ber 2015) Bolton, D (2015) Omnichannel Is Jargon hat Brands Don't Really Understand [ o n l i n e ] Av a i l a b l e a t : h t t p : / / arc.applaus e.com/2015/11/18/om‐ nichannel-seamless-experience/ (Ac‐ cessed: 19th November 2015) Brammer, M (2015) he Pros and Cons of Geo-Targeting in Paid Search [online] Available at: http://blog.hubspot.com/ agency/pros-cons-geotargeting-paidsearch (Accessed: 25th Novemeber 2015)

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8

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