Centre for Women & Co.
Her Platform
I along with five other designers had the opportunity to work with the Centre for Women & Co. to develop and pitch a design solution to them. We had two and a half days to research, develop and visualise our idea.
The Centre for Women & Co. is a not-for-profit organisation focusing on Domestic and Family violence and women's wellbeing. They also own a social enterprise called Her Platform that serves as a platform to promote education and awareness as well as income for the Centre for Women & Co.
We were tasked with addressing Her Platform's problem with a design solution.
The problem:
How can we expand the customer base for the shop to earn more profits and spread the positive messaging that supports our mission – in a way that aligns with our values? Is there another specific market segment that we could target more directly?
We were eager to address this challenge and worked collaboratively through each design phase to;
1. deepen our understanding of the Centre's needs + what we bring to the group
2. learn about the landscape of this organisation + 'wicked' social problem
3. ideate what could be possible + generate numerous responses
4. refine + develop a final concept, testing our creativity + skills
5. communicate this idea to The Centre for Women + Co, tutors + our peers
Our solution:
A coffee van ("Coffee & Co.") run by Her Platform aimed at increasing awareness of Domestic and Family violence within male dominated industries with the overall goal of creating male allies.
The following are our pitch slides as well as further explanations.
The problem:
The problem that Her Platform pitched to us was rather vague but focused on raising profits and finding other target audiences. We took this and initially explored the Domestic and Family Violence issue broadly to then come to a more specific problem that we wanted to solve.
We believe increasing awareness amongst men of the violence that women experience everyday, will empower them to better support and become advocates for the women in their lives.
We identified men as our target audience. We recognise that Family Violence is often framed as a women's issue rather than a community issue. We see men as a valuable part of improving the situation.
The idea:
Coffee & Co. is a coffee van that would travel around male dominated industries such as construction sites. The van would both raise profits for Her Platform and target a specific market to increase awareness, education and allyship.
The experience:
There are four stages of impact involved with this idea.
Awareness:
When ordering a coffee, men will have the opportunity to chat with the friendly and knowledgable baristas about the work of Women & Co.
Insight:
The van will be branded and decaled with key questions that automatically make the brain stop and think. This capitalises on that important time whilst they are waiting for the coffee.
Empathy:
We want to create curiosity and empathy and keep the conversation going. We will do that through specially designed coffee cups and stickers. Every 4th cup is a different colour, highlighting the statistic that 1 in 4 women will experience violence in their lifetime.
Allyship:
The stickers will be provided with each cup of coffee and can be placed in different locations to show allyship.
This experience will allow men to learn about Domestic and Family Violence, hopefully prompting them to become allies for all women in their life and learn about an organisation that they can refer these women to if necessary. Thus, this idea helps create awareness of the issue in an organic and conversation sparking way while also bringing in profits to the Centre for Women & Co to allow them to continue with their work.
The steps:
We recognise that the financial investment would need to be carefully considered. Here are the steps we propose.
Step 1:
Connecting with industry partners who would be willing to invest money and resources.
Step 2:
Investing the money to build the Coffee & Co van.
Step 3:
Designing the cups and stickers.
Step 4:
Driving to different locations, make connection and sell coffee.
The team and image references.
Credit for this project goes to:
Jenny Roach Bui
Jayde Casey
Kieran Goetz
Emma Hynes
Kerry Maberly
Caitlin Turner
We would like to thank the Centre for Women & Co for giving us this opportunity.
