OUGD505 #FLUSHLUSH

To participate in the movement and get the ball moving, I flushed my very own bath bomb down the toilet and posted it on instagram with the hashtag. This is a strong image and example of what the outcome of the guide should look like. 

OUGD505 FLUSHLUSH BATH BOMB GUIDE PRODUCTION

After selecting the correct paper stock and printing my design, I then used solver foiling to replace the ink on the paper. The combination of the shiny silver foil and bright yellow stock resembled a police officers high vis jacket perfectly, especially using the typeface, Whitney, creating a fully police officer inspired publication. I then printed a blue gradient over the top of the type to represent the bath bomb aspect of the project. I chose blue due to the small blue details found on a police officers jacket.

On the flip side of the guide is mainly lies information linking back the document to its original message which was to support the police. There is information regarding why you should support the police and how you participating in this campaign helps. There is also a lot of police charities listed that will be hinted at donating when you participate, meaning that this is not all just meaningless effort.

OUGD505 FINAL CRIT

During my final crit I presented my flushlush bath bomb guide mock up and explained all of the ideas behind this updated idea. The feedback was mainly positive and I was told that I had considered the design of the guide very well however, I was told that perhaps I was investing too much time into the production of this and had to ask myself important questions such as where will this be found and if I've moved too far away from my original topic.

This could be rectified very easily by considering what was missing from this guide for instance, how it would exist in the world and how people would receive this document. After some discussion one of things that I think I will go through with for the succession of the campaign is to include a pack of all the ingredients to make the bath bomb to be handed out with the flyer, meaning that the printed matter is not entirely pointless given the fact that this information could be found online if needed. Having these two items married together will be a great way to begin the campaign and the rest will be generated by the people who receive these which will be a social media presence of bath bombs being flushed.

To recall back to my initial point of being supportive of the police, the flip side of my guide will feature a list of police charities that could also be donated to in support of them, some more context to why exactly this is being done and some other facts and figures I have previously sourced to maintain the point to support the police.

OUGD505 FLUSHLUSH BATH BOMB GUIDE MESSAGE

The main part of the guide was obviously the content and the message I was trying to convey. I wanted to turn the project towards a more positive light due to the initial research seemed very serious and would have quite a boring outcome. Making it more light hearted has enabled me to enjoy this more so I began writing the content for the guide which would be a summary of the campaign, instructions on how to make the bath bomb and then finally how to flush it down the toilet.

Below is the content of the guide:

In the summer of 2018, Lush introduced a new campaign titled ‘SpyCops’ which aimed to slam a certain division of undercover police officers due to their practice. They made posters, fake police tape and merchandise promoting this idea that these undercover police officers were ruining peoples live, when in actual fact they were not. They have now received a backlash from police officers in the UK and members of the public in support of them. A social media campaign titled FlushLush was introduced to enhance people’s opinion upon this disgusting campaign. 

Christine Fulton who co-founded the charity Care Of Police Survivors (COPS), which supports the family of police officers who are killed on duty, wrote that she was “appalled”. A number of police officers have criticised the campaign, with one tweet to say he was “heartbroken”.

This is a guide on how to make your very own FlushLush inspired bath bomb and exactly how to use it. Follow the instructions carefully and don’t forget to flush!

Ingredients:

1 cup baking soda

1/2 cup citric acid

1/2 cup Epsom salts

1 tsp. water

2 tsp. essential oil

3 tsp. oil

food colouring

bowl

whisk

jar

bath bomb mold

Step1

Place the dry ingredients in a bowl and then mix them all evenly with the whisk.

Step2

In a separate container, mix the liquid ingredients together. Note that in this step, the essential oils, fragrances and colours are added. This is an important step! Make sure to pick out lots of fragrance oils to try out here, as you can make many fabulous combinations for bath time. Lavender bath bombs for relaxation and sleep, perhaps tinted purple. Ylang Ylang and bergamot for a sensual bath bomb, perhaps even add some rose. Tint this one pink. Just some thoughts 

Step3

Slowly add the liquid mixture to the dry mix, one small spoon at a time.

Step4

When well mixed, you simply pack this mixture into a bath bomb mold and pack tightly, then let it dry. Work quickly so as not to let the bath bomb mixture dry out.

Now you have made your very own FlushLush bath bomb! It’s time for the most important part of the instructions, the distribution of the bath bomb. To do this you must approach your nearest full toilet, open the lid, place the bath bomb inside and flush it away! Don’t forget to video yourself doing this and post it on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter with the hashtag FLUSHLUSH so that we can see your outcome and the effect it has.

I believe this is a very playful and fun way to prove my point and would hopefully this would encourage people to participate in this campaign.

OUGD505 BATH BOMB GUIDE DEVELOPMENT

I began studying a few different formats that the guide could come in and found this simple layout used by poster zine and a few others. It required only a few simple folds to be achieved and left a large space on the back for a poster sized design. This format would help me distribute my message with type and an interactive outcome made by the audience.

I began using the simple layout of these folded leaflets to place type inspired by police branding. I originally used the typeface Eurostile however I decided to change it to another one used by the police called Whitney, as I thought this has more aesthetic value. 

I began experimenting with the possible layout of the guide and also where to colours could sit. I found it hard to make them look good together due to the fact their use is to warn people and grant awareness not to look good. I thought the best way to approach this was to experiment with printing onto the correct coloured paper instead of printing the colours themselves. 

Before I did this, I continued to experiment with the layout and used the key word 'flush' to influence this. I was using type to convey my entire message so linking the type to this word would perhaps make it a more engaging read. I made sure every piece of type spiralled down the page as if it were literally being flushed away. 

I used mainly place holder text for the time being before I carefully began thinking about distributing my message. After this I printed the layout on the two different colours of stock I had to choose from which were yellow and blue. After some careful consideration I decided that I'd use the yellow and my main colour for this guide. This is because is matches the police officers high vis jacket so well and I believe I could represent that aesthetic so simply by foiling all of the type in silver.

OUGD505 UPDATED IDEA

After some feedback on my mug idea, I was made aware that this was a pointless piece of merchandise that could be applied to any campaign. I decided to scrap that idea an think of something more unique to this FlushLush story.

Continuing with the bath bomb idea, I have finally decided what I am going to make in relation to this. I am going to create a guide which informs you on how to create your own bath bomb and what to do with it, in this case flush it down the toilet. It will contain information on the article and why the document has been made, giving full context into why the bath bombs are being flushed. I will design this using the police branding that I had previously researched, simply representing what side of the argument this distributed leaflet is on.

OUGD505 FLUSHLUSH MUG DESIGN

I began designing several mug idea for the campaign, using all of the UK police branding criteria. This involved using the specific colours that the police force use and also the typeface, Eurostile which is used across all of their vehicles. Here are several initial ideas for the mug design. 

After much consideration and experimentation with this, I realised that perhaps I shouldn't be designing a mug because this is just a random piece of merchandise with no contextual link. This could link to any campaign that I wanted it too so instead I decided to scrap the mug idea and focus on something more relevant to the topic. I might continue using this branding throughout the project which will aid me in linking my work to the topic. 

OUGD505 #FLUSHLUSH IDEA

To continue my research into the #FlushLush campaign, I investigated social media and found some of the publics responses to this outrageous SpyCops campaign. Upon search for the hashtag 'FlushLush' I found several people had already attempted to brand this tag and transform it into a real campaign, however it never completely took off. Here are a few examples of some officers and people trying to raise awareness for this topic.

These first two are my favourite two responses. The first one is a literal visual representation of someone actually flushing Lush. I feel like this is quite a strong image that represents the campaign very simply within one image. Obviously, it is a very low quality image however, I reckon this could be taken further and produced onto a more high quality scale. The second image is a simple mug design promoting the FlusLush movement. The reason I like this is because all of the proceeds were donated to a police survivors charity, fully supporting the UK police and what they do using this hashtag campaign as a way to promote itself. 

These two images simply represent a very simple visual identity for the hashtag campaign. This is obviously very low quality but could be the basis of the visual identity I create.

Developing from this research, my idea has taken quite an informal turn. When reviewing these previous attempts at branding the hashtag, I figured out that the reason they never took anymore form was because the design was very poor. My idea is to now make a small gift package, like Lush do, however branding it entirely inspired by the UK police branding. The package would contain a cleverly designed mug featuring the same similar content to the one previously shown. It would also have a bath bomb inside too and a guide on how to flush it down the toilet, instead of use it in the bath. The packaging would be carefully considered, following the footsteps of the competition.