HOMEEmilia Flores, June 2024
My official “Tracking Menopause” poster!One of my first low fidelity iterations of a person experiencing menopause symptoms. Pictured here is “hair changes,” from my original idea to create symbols showing one woman’s journey through her symptoms.My week 2/5 menopause symbols incorporated more graphic elements surrounding the person experiencing menopause symptoms and were overall less cohesive, but they gave way to me developing the idea of an “avatar.”More week 2/5 menopause symbols. They incorporated more graphic elements surrounding the person experiencing menopause symptoms and were overall less cohesive, but they gave way to me developing the idea of an “avatar.”During week 3, I developed the idea of one person experiencing menopause symptoms further. I vectorized my symbols and made them more visually cohesive. At this point, I was still incorporating graphic elements around my person and reflecting menopause symptoms instead of emotions.During week 3, I created my first poster that suggested my symbols could possibly be used to track menopause. At this point, the features of menopause I was suggesting to track were symptoms, but during critique my peers and instructors pointed out how some symptoms last over the course of minutes, hours, days, months, or years, which could possibly cause difficulty in tracking. At this point, I pivoted to tracking emotions with avatars and focused on diversification.Here is my expansive symbol asset illustrator file! This exploration allowed me to think further about how to incorporate diversity into my symbol set.My Figma board where I created the wireframe presented in my final poster. I imagine that users would be able to build out their avatar to reflect their daily experiences and track their emotions from this page.Me with my final poster! I’m so happy about how this project came along – many thanks to my instructor Karen Cheng and my peers in Visual Communication Design for helping guide me in this project.
TRACKING MENOPAUSE
Created during Design 214: Marks and Symbols at the University of Washington with the intention to visually track the emotions that come with menopause, this symbol set is made up of diverse, customizeable avatars with over 400,000 possible variations.
Menopause is a period of a person’s life filled with significant life changes that can bring on a myriad of emotions, thoughts, and feelings. This five week project prompted me to explore the diversity of menopause as a life event – from the symptoms of perimenopause to the emotions that accompany a changing body and world. I started this project with the intention to represent symptoms of menopause, such as hair and skin changes, urinary problems, hot flashes, and mood swings. As I progressed in the project, however, I found myself more intrigued by the ability to track how menopause affects one’s emotions, and decided to pursue visually representing those changes. As a result, these symbols are designed as avatars that would accompany a mental health app for people experiencing menopause. Using the avatars, users would be able to express their emotions and associate them with the way their menopause is affecting their lives. The avatars express twelve different emotions: fear, excitement, fatigue, anxiety, frustration, surprise, happiness, annoyance, sadness, guilt, anger, and boredom. They also have twelve possible skin colors, four eye colors, five hair colors, seven hair styles, and twenty four possible shirt options. I plan on developing this project during summer 2024 to show the maximum capabilities of my proposed application, so stay tuned! Finally, I would like to extend a huge thank you to my professor, Karen Cheng, and my peers in my VCD class for all of their help on this project.