Appreciation

Phase II

appreciation

Tia Blunden | process book

first moodboard

contents

7

intro

13 initial concepts

15 audience

17 research

21 notebook

34 final concepts

40 works cited

questions

intro

In North America, the rates of depression have been increasing drastically over the last 50 years. In too many cases, this has lead to suicide. I believe that if we can increase the frequency of expression of appreciation we can increase overall happiness. This topic, appreciation is very broad, so I was figuring out where I wanted to concentrate on increasing our gratitude; for things, people, relationships, actions or services. so I soon decided to focus on appreciation

of our relationships with other people and all of the things they do for us. So in my initial brainstorming sessions I began defining these relationships and figuring out which relationships I thought could benefit most from an increase in appreciation. I separated them into relationships with pets, friends, family, lovers, and strangers. As a result, I figured we could most extend our gratefulness to our relationships with strangers. We interact with so many people everyday,

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but how often do we tell them how much we appreciate their help? If people could understand how much they are appreciated in their life, maybe this would give them a better sense of purpose and ultimately more satisfaction. Once I decided to focus on relationships with strangers I wondered if appreciation was really the problem or if it was the expression of this appreciation that we were most lacking.

I asked many questions in the beginning stages of development. From `Can design aid in making people happier without selling them a product?' to `Can design promote ways to express appreciation?' My goal is to be able to say "Yes." to these questions when I am done. This semester it is becoming increasingly more important that I am satisfied with the outcome and the development of the idea. I want to remind people of the benefits of these small easy actions, to bring understanding, and expression of appreciation. I don't want to inflict any feelings of guilt or fear.

If you google the definition of appreciation, it is defined as "the recognition and enjoyment of the good qualities of someone or something" or as "an expression of admiration, approval, or gratitude". So what does gratitude mean? "The quality of being thankful; readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness." and thankful is defined as the recognition of the benefits received. These basic definitions encouraged me to brainstorm the more abstract definitions of these words, and especially of the word expression. I was concerned with how this appreciation, or gratitude was already

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being expressed. I wanted to define the problems within the system so I could move forward with solutions of how we could better express this appreciation. In the end, it was decided that maybe we internally appreciate the actions people are often doing for us but we often lack expression of thankfulness. So my thesis is then, to increase the expression of appreciation between strangers.

in the lobby of a building. It included small reminder posters, and it worked with the phrase "Without Them...". This was quite simple to what I was expecting to do at first, so my first few concepts were variations of this theme.

Expression is defined as "the process of making one's thoughts or feelings known." I speculated that we do this: verbally, with our body language or facial expression, written in greeting cards, giving gifts ? it could be money, store-bought, or homemade, and through music and art. These have all been successful methods of communicating at times, but they are also vulnerable to becoming barriers for expression. While doing competitive research, the one campaign I thought was most similar to what I wanted to do initially was done by a student and was titled, the Workers Appreciation Campaign, it was basically a set of thank-you cards placed

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