Design research - campaigns by age group

We have not been provided a set target market so I thought it wise to look around and try to classify how age groups are informed through design.

Under 18s

Campaigns featured: FRANK, Tales of the Road, THINK! and Stop, Look and Listen hedgehogs

Key features of such campaigns are:

• Vibrant colours, funky styling
• Large, but limited amount of easy to read text/links
• Emotive, enticing visual images

Increasingly, the campaigns are becoming more hard hitting, for example the Cocaine Den on FRANK and The Boy Who Didn't Stop, Look and Listen on Tales of the Road.

As a consequence, the cutesy cartoon style of the hedgehogs has been retired in favour of puppet like animations using a sullen colour and eerie chilling story telling format. This to me, proves a definite indication of the change in interests of the younger generation nowadays.

Adults

Campaigns featured: Swine Flu, DigitalUK Switchover, Chip&Pin, Self Assessment: tax doesn't have to be taxing, TV Licensing: It's All in the Databade

These campaigns which target the mid to older generation tend to follow a format consistent throughout:

• Direct, straight to the point headings/text
• A simple image/graphic serving as a reference point
• One colour for highlighting/emphasising

I think the balance between text and image in this target market is more so here, as this age group are coming from a time when information was largely provided through text, and graphics were not used, perhaps through belief that graphics were too simple, or not serious enough.

I think from this I can see that more inventiveness is permissable using a younger generation. They have more games or interactive pieces, use imaginative ways to market the infomation (story telling, or making the topic of drugs a character - FRANK) and I believe are the most important group to target in terms of file-sharing.

I may be wrong, but youngsters tend not to have much money and so this could help explain why they may turn to illegal means for acquiring content, whilst adults have credit cards and jobs(!) to allow them to download using iTunes, or subscribe to Napster.

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