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Lysanna Damstra

Graphic Design
Bachelor
GD_LysannaDamstra_Positiviteit_03
Lysanna Damstra

Eindwerk

PositiviTIJD

My purpose with this project is to help people find their joy. My first reaction to a negative situation is to help other people look for their happiness. To find positive notes in the negative event. This makes me realize how important it is for people to see others happy. Seeing happiness makes one happy. Therefore, with my work I want to give people inspiration on how they can feel happiness with little notes and maybe pass it on to others.

https://www.instagram.com/positivi_tijd/

Scriptie

PositiviTIJD

My thesis ‘PositiviTIJD’ is about the speed of our economic growth, and how we can live a more balanced life if we take a step back. Degrowth is an upcoming movement that brings clarity and perspective on how we can live a more sustainable and equal life with each other and the earth. It’s about how we need to stop to measure success with economic growth and how to start to measure success with health, shelter and equality. In my thesis, I discuss this subject and explain why artists and designers have an important role in this. The question of this thesis is how a graphic designer can maintain and drive positive change. 

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Visie

I think that the artistic context of my project ‘PositiviTIJD’ is to communicate joy with people. We currently live in an increasingly individualized civilization, and I believe that it’s not the right choice we’re making. As a human we are born to be social and as a team we could do great things for our future. This begins with helping and listening to each other. My role as a graphic designer is to communicate, and in this specific context it is to make people feel seen and understood again. You are not alone in this world, so go outside and talk to one and another to spread happiness and inspire. Because that is when you feel motivated to change your surroundings to your liking. Be the change you want to see in this world and inspire others to do the same. Like I said before; seeing happiness makes one happy. 

My inspiration for this project is a graphic designer by the name of Stefan Sagmeister. In his work you will always find a hint of positivity and an encouraging look at our society. This inspires me to do the same, but in my own way with my own vision of the world and how the future should be. 

Helping people find their happiness, even if it is only by listening to them, is an important part of my life as a person and as a designer. Social design has always been an interest of mine, so when I am able to work in the field, this is where my focus will be. The project I am graduating with is extremely relevant right now, because I think it’s human nature to communicate happiness and love with strangers again after the pandemic of 2019. We all experienced some difficulties and unforeseen events that are irreversible. When you visit my project, you will walk a certain route of giving and taking. You leave a personal concern or negative event behind by writing it down with a red pen on a heart shaped card and ‘posting’ it in the letterbox. The letterbox is a transparent red box, so your message will literally fade away. Leaving you with the sight of a box filled with hearts. Then you will write a positive message for a stranger to take home and hang it on the wall, while taking a message that somebody left which appeals to you to bring home yourself.

In conclusion, together we create the feeling of seeing happiness makes happiness. And with that, I as a graphic designer have achieved the visualization of my thesis.

 

 

This page was last updated on June 23, 2021