The Thrive Kit logo
The Context and Problem
Female creatives who are entering into Creative industries or have minimal industry experience are prone to experiencing burnout quicker as they overextend themselves due to the pressure to perform, prove themselves as competent and capable creative professionals. This burnout compromises their emotional and physical wellbeing which in turn has a severe impact on their creativity, productivity and their job satisfaction.
Mailer Box packaging for the Thrive Kit.
The Creative Strategy
This project aims to adress this specific problem within female creatives by creating a self-care stationery package that helps manage emotional and physical symptoms of potential burnout seen within Female Creative professionals with minimal industry experience. Each individual item within the stationery package will assist the female creative in managing and improving a detrimental work behaviour before it leads to full burnout.
This kit will be distributed to creative and design Agencies around South Africa who may have recently employed young female creatives who may have recently completed therir university career or to individuals who have minimal experience within the creative industry. The new employees will be presented with this welcome stationery package in order to assist them in caring for themselves, To ensure that physical and emotional wellbeing is taken care of in order to create positive, healthier and sustainable habits in their work lives.
Mailer Box packaging for the Thrive Kit.
The Creative Concept
The concept is centered around the idea that the experience that a young female creative has when she enters into the work place can be likened to and a metaphor for caring for a plant. As a young female creative you are uprooted from your old environment (university) and planted in an unfamiliar environment with a new terrain (set of challenges) that one needs to navigate. This can be extremely overwhelming for an unexperienced creative. The employer or creative director of the agency will give these creatives the Thrive Kit that contains different tools that will nourish and nurture you that will allow you to thrive and flourish during your time at their agency. By using the tools to orientate themselves to a new environment and manage the symptoms of burnout and overextension one will notwilt under pressure but bloom into a dynamic and compotent creative professional.
Mock-up of Informational post-card to give more information about what the Thrive Kit is.
The Execution
The Thrive Kit consists of stationery, organizational and lifestyle items that assist a female creative to manage work behaviours that are categorised as emotional and physical. These items will be used in her day-to-day work life and environment in order to prevent overextension and possible creative and physical burnout. These items will be directly linked to the processes with creative concept development, experimentation and general working in which a female Creative could be susceptible to bad working or personal behaviour for example doubting oneself when generating a concept in the concept generation phase.
Flat designs of the front (left) and back (right) of the Thrive Kit informational post-card.
Flat designs of the front (left) and back (right) of general agency information.
Flat designs of the front (left) and back (right) of the burnout informational post-card.
Step 1: Adjusting To New Soil
The creative will get given the pack upon their arrival at the agency. Their first line of contact with the kit is a set of three administrative postcards. Each of these postcards gives information that one needs to know when using the kit and while they work within a creative workspace. The first card gives information as to what the kit is and how to use each element in order to create sustainable working behaviour and manage burnout.
The next card gives general information that ones needs to know about the agency. This consists of the wifi username and password, printing login information and two emergency contacts that she can use if she has a problem. This sheet will be designed as a digital template that each agency can fill out with their unique emergency contact information. Lastly a post card will be given that explains what burnout is and what the symptoms are in order for the female creative to identify them and use the kit to help manage them.
Mock-ups of the full set of informational post-cards.
Step 2: Nurturing New Relationships
One can often experience burnout as an isolated experience so it is truly important when coping with the emotional symptoms of burnout that one have strong relationships that builds a support system. The second stage of orientation within the workspace Involves the creative Introducing herself to her co-workers to foster relationships that are both social and for mentorship. The first element of this section of the kit involves creating a custom avatar that one can put on their desk as a way to start small talk with their colleagues who walk past their desk.
Secondary packaging of the personalised avatar builder (left) and a creative making her own personlised avatar (right).
The avatar builder will consist of four card pages that one can cut out the elements they choose in order to build their avatar. The first page prompts the creative to choose a base that best suits them and their skin tone. The second page features a selection of hairstyles that they can choose. There are three groups. Long hairstyles, short hairstyles and styled updo's. These hairstyles have been left blank so that the junior female creative can customise it to her liking. They then can choose and outfit to complete their avatars look. Lastly they can choose a name tag that will introduce them.
Flat designs of the various items that can be used to make a customised avatar.
Female creatives showcasing the avatar that they have made suited to them.
The second element within the kit that will help a female creative in nurturing new relationship is a set of three coffee vouchers. Once the creative individual has made a first point of contact with her colleagues she now has the opportunity to cement the realtionship. These relationships can either be for social purposes so that one has a friend that supports them and goes through the highs and lows of agency life with them. The second is for mentorship.
Mock-ups of the three coffee date vouchers a female creative can give to her colleagues.
Being in a new environment can be very daunting for someone who has recently started a career within the creative field. Having someone who know the ropes and imparts their knowledge about the ins and out of the design business can be truly beneficial to an inexperienced individual. You can learn from this person and use their wisdom to help you thrive in your daily tasks at the agency.
Flat designs of both the front (left) and back (right) of the coffee date voucher.
Secondary packaging of motivational sticker pack.
When one is in the thick of creative work like developing a concept, visualising a concept through moodboards or just knitty gritty admin work one can start to feel tired, lacking in inspiration and creative ideas and in need of motivation and a little encouragement. The element within the kit that assists with this is a set of encouraging stickers illustrated to creative tools and puns that further extend the visual metaphor of a female being likened to a plant growing in a new environment.
Flat designs of the stickers that come within the motivational sticker pack.
These stickers create a light-hearted atmosphere in an intense and an extremely fast paced environment. one can place these stickers on their laptop, their phone and even on the actual work they are busy with so that when they hit a dry spot in their creative thinking they are able to find joy and spark creativity in a jungle of deadlines and looming employer expectations.
The " You grow girl" sticker seen on the cover of a smartphone.
A female creative holding the "hang in there" sticker (left) and the stickers being used within a female creative's workspace (right).
A creative individual needs to manage her hydration levels throughout her work day.
In order for her to do this a bottle and hydration tracker has been included in the kit. The lady can choose a hydration tracker that best suits her and stick it on her bottle. The time intervals on the label will assist them in making sure they stay hydrated the whole day.
The water bottle with custom hydration sticker label that a female creative can use to track her water intake throughout her daily working routines.
Each label is a white vinyl sticker that can be written on. The female creative can spruce up her label with her own doodles and artworks to make it more customisable to her.
A female creative customising the hydration tracker label made from white vinyl.
Flat design of the hydration tracker label showcasing cacti and a female creative.
The second is a Calathea a plant that needs lots of care. The creative that suits this plant is a woman who thrives in comfortable clothing and spaces. With a cup of coffee and her work tools by her side she is able to flourish.
Flat design of the hydration tracker label showcasing a Calathea and a female creative.
Lastly is a Monstera plant that is easy to care for, spreads It's aerial roots and does not like to be confined in pots.This is a picture of a low maintenance creative who spreads out when she works and has her own creative system.
Flat design of the hydration tracker label showcasing a Monstera and a female creative.
The stationery items that are included in the kit assist the female creative to increase her productivity while she works and organise her daily tasks with regard to their importance and urgency. The first element is a set of post-it notes that are colour coded. As a creative we often idneitify certain tasks or a project by colour, these post-it notes will assist her in achieving this. A note pad is included that has a dotted grid on it. The addition of a dotted grid will allow the note pad to become multi-functional. A creative can use it to take down notes, doodle and even plot her own grid for scamping and logo development.
Mock-up of the multi-functional notepad included in the Thrive Kit.
An important element of the kit is the inclusion of a set of dot stickers that the female creative can use with her notepad to vategorise the importance of her daily tasks. Often times one may glance down at their tasks at hand and see that there may be way too many to complete. This can lead to stress and the pressure to complete too many tasks in a time frame that is not attainable.
Close-up of grades of emergency stickers secondary packaging label front (left) and the back showing the colour coding of the stickers (right).
Grades of emergency stickers secondary packaging (left), the stickers being used with the notepad (middle) and a creative using the stickers to organise the importance of her daily tasks (right).
The dot stickers are used to categorise these tasks according to their grade of emergency. They are colour coded according to their importance. Pink is for tasks that need to be done that day, yellow is for tasks that need to be done that week and green is for tasks that need to be completed within the month. A creative can takea sticker and place it next to a task according to what she feels is important. This will help her create a sustainable system that weeds out unnecessary stress and allows ner to be productive.
Set of four post-it notes.
Thank you!
