ideating

The V Word

I was instantly overwhelmed by the idea of doing a DA. The assignment just seemed beyond my personality and capabilities and I went into instant panic mode. I assumed it would be impossible to come up with a worthy idea and felt more and more nervous as those around me started to come up with some great ideas! I know, I sound like the biggest drama queen ever! But, I had never done anything like this before and I was scared!

Although I do believe my personality is pretty out going, the thought of publicly posting blogs or YouTube videos about myself made me cringe.

However, once I actually sat down and began ideating, I realised coming up with an interesting concept wasn’t going to be that hard. I realised I am actually interested in quite a lot of things; movies, music, fashion, animals, current affairs! I tried brainstorming ways I could turn these concepts into something tangible and engaging, but I didn’t seem to be getting anywhere. I don’t really have any credible experience in any of those areas and thus could not figure out a way to base a whole project around them.

And then one day as I sat down to eat my vegan lunch, it came to me! Veganism! I have been vegan for three years and therefore decided that doing my DA on veganism would make the most sense, as food is obviously one of the most important things in our lives! I was a bit concerned about doing a topic so ‘controversial’ as I am scared of what people say about me, and so I usually keep the fact that I am vegan to myself for as long as I can. But then I realised no one actually cares that much, and if anything, people are only becoming more open to the idea! Veganism is only becoming more relevant and prominent in today’s climate and so I decided that it would be an appropriate, personal and interesting topic to base my DA on as it something I am knowledgeable of and am able to help educate other about. I then started to brain storm specific ideas relating to veganism

For my DA I plan to post Youtube videos and blog posts – but apart from my pitch video, I haven’t done either. 

Because of my lack of content and promotion, I have had no engagement with an online audience. I really need to step it up and start producing posts and videos in order to actually obtain feedback and analyse how well they are received by others. I have now realised that in order for my DA to be successful, I need to “choose a routine and be consistent” with my posting. I have also realised I need to engage with the first step of the design process: empathy. If I want to create an engaging audience, I have to consider what they want to see. I plan on using twitter polls in order to obtain opinions and suggestions for my content.

However, I did pitch my idea to a few ‘naive listeners’. I explained my DA to some friends and family members and they were all interested and supportive of me idea. I have quite a few friends who are vegan and they were especially interested, and claimed that they would definitely find my content useful and entertaining. 

To help me start ideating, i took inspiration from various vegan and lifestyle content creators such as Lindsey Rem, Wear I Live, Haley Raines and Hitomi Mochizuki. Being able to consider how other people are doing the same thing I plan on doing has been really helpful and has provided me with some guidance on how I should go about my DA.

Now that the ideating process is over, I can focus on prototyping and making!