How Schools Can Use Design To Effectively Promote Issues around SMSC

If you are planning a project around SMSC, then consider how design may be able to help you effectively promote your chosen issue and even raise funds to support your cause. It is also a great way to bring pupil’s imagination and creativity into the project and helping them engage with the wider community.

Design can trigger a huge emotional response to engage and connect with people. I know from my own experience in designing for schools how powerful a simple piece of design like a postcard can be. The first school I designed a bespoke postcard for told me that several parents came into school in tears in the first week they sent their new postcard out, as they were so happy to receive the postcards praising them on their child’s achievement.

Imagine if your pupils could create a similar response from their target audience and really influence a change. What a brilliant learning outcome it would be for them. Ask the pupils to explore what it is that they really want to say and whom they want to say it to. Once they know that, they can then think about what the right medium might be to communicate with this audience.

I was invited by the Citizenship Foundation to speak to a group of Primary School Teachers about how they can use effective design to promote their causes and raise funds. We are programmed to respond to visual content, in fact 50% of our brains are involved in visual processing.

The top 5 benefits of using design to support your SMSC issue are:

1. Instantly convey a message
2. Create an emotional connection
3. Overcome communication barriers and engage with different audiences
4. Good design breaks down a complex message into something that is easy to understand
5. Make your message more memorable

Below are a few of the tips I shared with the teachers to help them and their pupils create effective designs.

Tips on choosing the right image

• Use only one or two large, eye-catching images rather than lots of small images.
• A child’s drawing can be more powerful than a photograph – it depends on your chosen project and whom you want to take notice.
• Let the image tell the story. The image chosen should enhance the written message and let the viewer know what it is all about before even reading the text.
• White space is good. Don’t try and cram everything into a small space. Leave space around important elements to draw the viewer’s attention to them. It helps the mind focus on the important message.

Tips on content

• Have just one main message per poster or leaflet. Don’t try and cram too much information in or people won’t know what to read first, may get confused and therefore not bother to read it.
• Keep it simple, to the point, and easy to understand. This will make it more memorable.
• Don’t use too many different fonts. Keep it consistent. Use a font that is clear and legible. Use an appropriate font size, for example a poster title should be readable from 6 metres away (at least 48pt text).
• Start with a short, snappy title to capture your reader’s interest.
• Try and answer the questions – ‘who’, ‘what’, ‘where’, ‘when’, ‘how’ and ‘why?’
• Remember to include a ‘call to action’. What do you want your audience to do now?

Most importantly have fun…

Creativity is all about trying out different ideas and generating new solutions. Use your imagination to create something new and original. Try looking at the world in a different way and ask “what if…”