The Twenty One Year Old’s Guide to Adulting explores the journey a twenty one year old faces as they transition into an adult. The project reflects my own experience as a twenty one year old in order to help other young people with their journeys. The work consists of a publication, calendar and podcast series. This has been designed in order to connect with the target audience (20-21 year olds). This is done through the colour scheme, digital illustrations, humour, and trendy slang language. The podcast series interviews other young people to talk about topics that relate to being twenty one, and is recorded with a relaxed feel, to make it feel as if you are hanging out with friends. I hope to provide a positive experience as well as help other young people through my work.
The Twenty One Year Old’s Guide to Adulting consists of a calendar, publication, podcast series and a website. The project has been inspired by my own life experience as a twenty one year old. As a twenty one year old in 2020 my year has been chaotic. A twenty first birthday often holds the meaning of entering adulthood. Through my research I have found that this transition into adulthood can be a challenging time for many twenty one year olds. I aim to target other young people, 20-21 year olds through my project. I hope to bring some light, advice and fun to their personal experiences as twenty one year olds.
I formed different quotes and pieces of advice for both my calendar and publication, based off my own experience. The quotes in the book are written to be relatable, but also humorous. This is done through slang words that young people often use. I hope to achieve smiles to people’s faces when they read the publication. I then visualised these quotes in order to create a complementary illustration. I have used my new found skill in digital illustrations as the illustration style in my publication. I have added texture to these illustrations to create some depth and shadow. I used a fun typeface, Opake, for my quotes. I also used a brighter colour scheme to connect with my audience. The calendar consists of 12 months with different quotes and illustrations. The publication consist of 35 double page spreads that consist of quotes and illustrations. There are different spread layouts to keep the book interesting.
In the podcast series I talk to other young people about their experiences. The aim of the podcast is to be relaxing and feel like a catch up with your friends. The series at this stage covers, health and fitness, uncertainty, entrepreneurship, and travel, but has the potential to be expanded to other relatable topics. The podcast compliments the publication and is something you can listen to on the go or at home. Each episode is a different length as I wanted to keep the conversation as natural as possible. They are available to be listened to on The Twenty One Year Old’s Guide website (www.twentyone-guide.com).
The website’s main purpose is a place to organise the podcast episodes, however also has a short blurb about the publication and project. The website uses the brand colours, typography, and patterns to keep it constant. It also has small moving gifs to get the audience’s attention and create a little bit of playfulness and fun.
To package up all my outcomes. I created a wrapping paper. This has the same pattern as the covers of my publication, calendar, and podcast cover. I have chosen to do this so that it looks like a twenty first birthday gift. I have also folded the wrapping paper in a Japanese folding technique so that there is no use for tape so the paper can be reused once it has been opened.
