DBA Inclusive Design Challenge 2005
OOP / Enterprise IG
A registered marque called OOP that can be used in a wide variety of contexts and different media to indicate that a product, service or environment has been designed with the needs and aspirations of excluded groups of people in mind but is mainstream in relevance.
Background
Accessibility and inclusivity are commonly viewed as related only to age and disability and not of benefit to all. Enterprise IG investigated how the concept of inclusivity could be branded in the same way as a product or service in the commercial market to raise awareness of the benefits of inclusive thinking and inform those for whom it is key to their quality of life.
How Does it Work?
Enterprise IG propose an equivalent marque named OOP to the British Standards Institute (BSI) kitemark, a widely recognised symbol of trust, integrity and quality. In the same way, OOP would identify services, environments and products that are inclusive while OOPSY its negative counterpart would indicate that they are not. The OOP marque would be owned by the BSI in collaboration with the Design Council with criteria for its award set by the Helen Hamlyn Research Centre.
Why Do This?
- To make people aware of services, experiences or products that cater for their needs
- To take away worry, stress and complication for those who rely on them
- To encourage businesses to invest in inclusive design
- To make designers consider the end user in a bid to obtain the marque.
Developing the Idea
The team wanted to avoid cliches or politically correctness and the pious, stale and boring design that results. The disabled users they worked with suggested the use of irreverent humour as a good way to connect to people and make an idea memorable.
The Final Design
The graphic styling is uncomplicated and easily understandable through the use of shapes and symbols rather than words or numbers. The design team wanted to fuse humour with purity and began with an all-encompassing circle that is easily recognisable. Three dots in this formation symbolise faith, hope, and love, the three values underpinning the marque: "Faith in the product, hope that it will change my life and love the absolute outcome." Colours were also chosen to symbolise the key elements of any human being and the meaning of the marque: Red for love, the heart, body and health; yellow for the mind, while blue relates to the spirit. These also represent the three areas the team aimed to target - Product (Red) Service (Yellow) Experience (Blue).
Choosing the Name
The team wanted a simple, expressive word that was easy to say and would trip off the tongue. They began with OOPSY - a word used when you make a mistake and whose positive equivalent would be OOP- the Overtly Obvious and Positive.
Different Media
The simplicity of the marque allows designers to express different emotions or abilities by changing it into an animated character - add a pair of glasses and OOP sees, two ears and an aerial and OOP listens: add a drinking straw and OOP tastes and so on. OOPSY is OOP's negative counterpart that indicates problems and negative actions in the same animated way and is a visual reminder to all to do the right thing.
The team envisage OOP existing as an embossed tactile marque or as a distinctive sound. The flexibility of expression allows it to be used in a variety contexts on billboards, telephone boxes, stamped on products or as a plaque awarded to a business as a sign of their inclusivity.
Judges' Comments
We thought that this was a delightful presentation of a worthwhile idea whose memorable cartoon and beautifully designed logo expressed it well especially for younger audiences. Enterprise IG took the difficult task of looking at their discipline and seeing how corporate branding could help in the area of inclusivity.