Research: Dementia Friendly Cities

Dementia Friendly Cities

Taken from a report by Leeds City Council
I found a useful report by the Leeds city council about how they plan on becoming a dementia friendly city. Here are the main points. 

• This report gives an overview of work to date and future plans for dementia-friendly Leeds. The scope of this report covers important developments in health and social care; and steps towards local “dementia-friendly communities”, which are intended to improve the everyday experience of living with dementia.
• The Council announcing the commitment to dementia-friendly Leeds (March 2012); and their event for dementia awareness week, “Better lives for people with dementia in Leeds”, hosted by West Yorkshire Fire and Rescue.
• Support from the three Clinical Commissioning Groups in Leeds to allocate £400K of service transformation monies to projects to develop early diagnosis, post diagnosis support, integrated care, and a skilled workforce.
• A further £45K has been attracted from NHS regional innovation fund, for collaborative work to reduce inappropriate use of anti-psychotic medication.
• It is estimated that there are 8,400 people with dementia in Leeds, of whom 4,000 have a diagnosis recorded. 
• The report defines Dementia as a term used to describe: a set of symptoms that include loss of memory, mood changes, and problems with communication and reasoning. There are many types of dementia. The most common are Alzheimer's disease and vascular dementia. Dementia is progressive, which means the symptoms will gradually get worse.
• Dementia is a long-term condition, which can be managed to maintain wellbeing; and usually co-exists with other long-term conditions. 
• Support must be co-ordinated throughout the “dementia journey”, from awareness of early signs and symptoms, through diagnosis and early intervention, to care through the advanced stages and end of life care.
• Family members and carers are often the most important support that a person with dementia has, and have specific needs arising from the impact of dementia on relationships, decision-making, and daily living.

The following priorities have been identified for improving health and social care in Leeds, the first four of which will be supported by one-off investment of local service transformation funds:

• Increasing early detection and diagnosis, by support and training for GPs, and improvements to memory clinic services.
• Ensuring that after diagnosis, there is a clear offer of support and treatment to maintain well-being and independence as far as the condition allows.
• Improving integrated care for people with more complex needs and risks, which arise from a combination of dementia, long-term conditions, and frailty.
• Achieving the standard for workforce quality, for health and social care, set by the National Institute for Clinical Excellence – that people with dementia are cared for by appropriately-trained staff.
• Better support with emotional and psychological needs, and reduced use of anti-psychotic medication; supported by investment of £45K NHS regional innovation fund.
• A local campaign to improve public awareness, and promoting positive attitudes towards people living with dementia.
• Leeds Teaching Hospitals Trust to improve ward environments, in line with the NHS Call To Action The Right Care – developing dementia-friendly hospitals.
• A dementia needs assessment for the Leeds population, to improve our understanding of local needs, as part of the Joint Strategic Needs Assessment.

Alongside these priorities, Leeds is committed to developing dementia-friendly communities and involving people living with dementia in this process. This requires the greatest degree of engagement from a wide range of businesses and organisations outside health and social care, most of whom never have considered their role in enabling people to live well with dementia.


The “Better Lives For People With Dementia In Leeds” event in May 2012, included a workshop on dementia-friendly communities. This suggested that priorities should include awareness-raising with supermarkets and transport providers; promoting intergenerational work; and exploring whether a ‘self identification’ scheme would be helpful. This would enable a person to show a ‘passport’-type document to explain one’s condition and needs, in case of difficulties.

Reflection
I think this kind of stance is much needed and long overdue. It is right there should be more emphasis on getting early diagnosis. There is a definite need for the increased funding detailed in this report.

Typography Research: Type Rules

Typography Research: Type Rules

Titling Fonts

• These are type designs that have been specifically designed for headline or display settings. Titling fonts differ from their text counterparts in that their scale, proportion, and design details have been altered to look best at larger sizes. 
• This commonly includes a more extreme weight contrast and often more condensed proportions. While usually all-cap, single-weight variants of larger text families, titling fonts can also be stand-alone designs. 
• This could be something to consider for my poster design. 

Clarendon

• This style made popular in the 1850s has a strong vertical weight stress; heavy, bracketed serifs (usually square); and slight stroke contrast.

Design Goals

• The first and foremost step in selecting a typeface is knowing your goals. 
• Every job requires a different approach.
• An annual report might call for a typeface with a high degree of legibility that also captures the spirit of the company, but a book cover might need a face that catches the eye. 
• Start by identifying the age, attention span, and demographics of your audience.
• Different typefaces attract a different audience, both subliminally and overtly. Seniors are drawn to larger settings that have more clarity; teens to edgier, more expressive designs. 
• After you consider your audience, ask yourself how much reading you are asking them to do and what information you are expecting them to walk away with.
• Once you identify your design objective, your typeface choices will narrow considerably.

Legibility and Readability

• Legibility refers to the actual design of the typeface, while readability refers to how the type is set.
• The legibility of a typeface is related to the characteristics inherent in its design, including its x-height, character shapes, stroke contrast, the size of its counters, serifs or lack thereof, and weight-all of which relate to the ability to distinguish one letter from another.
• Not all typefaces are designed to be legible.
• This is more of a consideration for text designs where the degree of legibility relates directly to holding the reader's attention for the duration of the copy. 
• Display designs are generally used for a few words in larger settings where the objective is to be instantly noticeable and to convey a mood or a feeling, so legibility might not be as important. 
• Readability, on the other hand, is related to how you arrange the type.
• Factors affecting type's readability include size, line spacing, line length, alignment, letter spacing, and word spacing. 
• A legible typeface can be made unreadable by how it is set, while a typeface with poor legibility can be made more readable with these same considerations. 

Spacing

• A typeface that is well spaced is neither too tight nor to open-most importantly, it has optically even spacing between characters throughout the design. 
• Many type designers don't pay as much attention to proper and consistent spacing, which dramatically affects the look of a design, as they do to the design of the actual letter form. 

Kerning

• Even a typeface that is spaced properly has character combinations that are too open or too tight (although a well-spaced design will have fewer).  
• These character pairs should be adjusted by the type designer in the actual font with the creation of kern pairs. 
• Once again, this is often neglected by designers, often due to unfamiliarity with this aspect of type design.

Even Colour and Texture

• A typeface should also have an even colour and texture; two of the most important aspects of good design, and good type design relies on a combination of all of the characteristics described above. 
• Another important but somewhat unnoticed factor in achieving even colour and texture is proper word spacing. 
• The right amount allows a typestyle to be read easily without the words either running together or separated by oversized white spaces that interrupt the colour and overall readability of the design.
• So, there is more to type design than the actual shapes of the characters. AS you begin to notice these characteristics, your eye will get sharper and you will more easily differentiate a well-designed typeface from the rest of the pack.

Text Vs. Display

• There are two main categories of type: text and display. Simply put, text type is designed to be legible and readable at small sizes. 
• This usually implies fairly clean, consistent, uncomplicated design features; more open spacing than a display face; and thin strokes that hold up at smaller sizes. 
• Display type, on the other hand, can forgo the extreme legibility and readability needed for long block of text at small sizes for a stronger personality, elaborate and more expressive shapes, and a more stylish look.
• Many typefaces do not adhere to these descriptions, however, and can be used for both text and display. Some even look their best at midrange sizes. 
• When you are choosing a font, try to see a word grouping set at a size close to what you will be using. 
• It is very difficult to visualise what 14-point text will look like from a 60-point ‘a to z’ showing.

Dos and Don’ts

• Do start with a few basic typefaces and type families; learn how to use them well. Consider them the backbone of your typographic wardrobe-then you can add them to fit more specific occasions. 
• Many excellent designers use the same menu of typefaces for most of their work, and used appropriately, they always manage to look fresh and do the job well.
• Do leave white space. White space can create drama and emphasize the type.
• Do consider how your type will look at the size you are planning to use it.
• Do consider production issues when selecting text type.
• Don’t set to fit. Decide on a point size or range that looks and reads the best, and adjust line spacing and line width accordingly.
• Don’t go too big when setting text.
• Don’t tint type with delicate thin strokes.
• Don’t distort your type.
• Don’t let the way a typeface looks on a proof from you personal printer be the deciding factor in your selection, as it can look much heavier than the actual printed piece.

Typeface to consider Adobe Garamond pro

Display Type

• Display type can, and should, have less leading in general, since as type gets larger the negative spaces associated with the line spacing (and letter spacing) appear progressively too large. 
• When setting all caps, throw these rules out the window; all caps can be set with little or no leading and often look best with negative leading. 
• Line spacing, to a certain degree, has been trend based in the last few decades.
• Today line spacing leans towards a more open look, making for better readability and a cleaner appearance with more open space.
• For display type, auto-leading settings will generally be way off mark. Use your eye, not your software to make larger type settings visually appropriate. 

Reflection

I will make sure that I adjust the leading as appropriate for the larger text. I will select my typeface carefully, in accordance my design goals. 

Typography Research: Stop Stealing Sheep by Spiekermann and Ginger

Stop Stealing Sheep by Spiekermann and Ginger

• Given the typographic choices available, there is no excuse for producing bad business forms, illegible invoices, awkward applications, or ridiculous receipts. 
• Not a day goes by without having to deal with printed matter of this nature. It could so easily be a more pleasant experience.
• Some of the new typefaces designed to work well in business communication & on low-resolution out put devices, such as laser printers or ink-jet printers e.g. ITC Stone Informal, Lucida, ITC Officina. 
• We read best what we read most, even if it is badly set, badly designed & badly printed.
• This is not to suggest there is a substitute for good type, great design or clean printing, but a reminder of the fact that certain images are deeply ingrained in the reader's mind. 
• Handgloves-this word contains enough relevant shapes to judge an alphabet.
• Good typefaces to consider-Adobe Caslon Regular, Candida, Helvetica, ITC Stone Serif, Sabon, Bodoni Old Face, Memphis, Syntax.
• Typographic features like large x-heights, wide counters, and exaggerated ascenders are no less slaves to fashion than the perpetual changes in skirt lengths dictated by what's shown on Paris runways. 
• The size of type, indicated in points ( a point is 0.01384 inch; 12 points=1 pica; 6 pica= 1 inch), is only a reminder of a historical convention, when type was cast on a body of metal. The body size of all 12-point type would have been the same, but actual image on that body could be vastly different. 
• Times New Roman was specifically produced in1931 for the London newspaper that gave its name to the typeface. 
• In the late 1930s Mergenthaler Linotype in the USA developed a group of five typefaces that were designed to be legible despite the rigours of newspaper printing. They were not surprisingly called the 'Legibility Group,' and a couple are still popular today: Corona and Excelsior. 
• Some typefaces have a leisurely look, while conforming to everyday typographic expectations. Others were born unusual, yet casual shapes and make the best of it.
• Stempel Schneidler combines friendly letter shapes and high legibility-you can use it everyday without it becoming restrictive like a necktie. 
• A recent typeface that looks casual, even 'nice' but still good for real work is ITC Flora. It was designed by the Dutch type designer Gerard Unger in 1980 and named after his daughter. 
• Ellington, released in 1990, is a new design by Michael Harvey, the English lettering artist and stone carver. Both typefaces are quite unusual and therefore, not often thought of as useful text faces but they are.
• Many typefaces designed to look 'friendly' tend to be patronising. They can be so nice that you quickly get tired of them. When you're looking for casual typefaces, the obvious candidates are, of course, all of the scripts. Most, however, are not suited to long spells of reading, just as sandals are very comfortable, but not for walking on rocky roads.
• It is very simple to tell a particular business by the typefaces it prefers; the more technical the profession, the cooler and more rigidly constructed the typefaces have to be (Univers for architects); the more traditional the trade, the more classical they are (Bodoni for bankers). 
• Frutiger has recently become one of the more popular typefaces for corporate use. 
• Palatino owes its popularity largely to its availability as a core font on PostScript laser printers. It is nevertheless a welcome alternative to other less suitable serif fonts.
• Univers was the first typeface designed to be planned with a coordinated range of widths and weights, comprising 21 related designs. 
• Bodoni Old Face is one of many re-designs from the late 18th century. 
• Numbers can be an eyesore when they are set in the middle of regular text. Old style figures, sometimes called lowercase figures, are endowed with features like ascenders and descenders, which allow them to blend right in with other words on the page.
• Setting text in short lines for quick scanning requires rearrangement of all other parameters, too. Tracking can be tighter, and word spaces and line spaces smaller. 
• A quick look at a short piece of writing could be assisted by typeface that has a little verve. It shouldn't be as elaborate as a display font used on a label or a poster, but it also doesn't need to be too modest. 

Reflection

This has some good suggestions for typefaces which I will bear in mind. It also has some good type recommendations. 

Tutorial 20/03/13

Tutorial 20/03/13

After this tutorial I continued working on my posters and printed for my interim crit. I continued looking at other dementia awareness posters.

Main Message

Main Message

The main messages I want to portray through my series of posters are some facts and figures on dementia, and also the main symptoms of Dementia. 

The main facts and figures I want to include are:

·      1/3 people over 65 will develop dementia.

·      In less than 10 years an estimated 1 Million people in the UK will be living with it.

·      800,000 living with Dementia, half of that is Alzheimer’s specifically.

The main symptoms of dementia I want to include are:
·      Experience memory loss-having particular problems with short-term memory or memory for new things
·      Become very forgetful-especially of recent events and people’s names

·      Be disoriented in time

·      Become lost in familiar places

I want to raise general awareness of it whilst making people aware of the main facts and symptoms of it. I will target young people, because they are least aware of it.

Helen Hamlyn Centre

Helen Hamlyn Centre

The Helen Hamlyn Centre is part of the Royal College of Art

Mind book (above) was designed for the DBA Inclusive Design Challenge 2008

It is a multimedia software application in the form of a virtual scrapbook that triggers memory and facilitates positive interaction between people with dementia, their families and carers.

It features a life book to store important images, words, music and videos which can be linked to a specific date and used to trigger memories. It also features a games section to keep the mind active. It has a diary section to help keep track of appointments and events such as birthdays, and sends out useful reminders. 

Braga Typeface: Dstype foundry

Braga Typeface: Dstype foundry

Taken from Eye magazine Autumn 2011

This is a serif typeface. The B and R have similar forms. The E and F have similar forms too. The counter of M is smaller than the N. The O is very circular. The E and F are thinner than the N and O. The top and bottom counter of E and B are equal. The typeface is very ornate. The typeface is very colourful. Although the typeface is both colourful and decorative the typeface is still readable, even on an ornate background. The typeface has extra ascenders and descenders. This is the kind of thing I don't want my poster to end up looking like, so I think I'll add colour in last and leave the posters black and white till the end.

Jolanta Zute: Hand Crafted Type

Jolanta Zute: Hand Crafted Type

Zute has hand stitched the words 'You're so my type' onto various fabrics, using the typically British font Clarendon. I like his simplistic use of typography. 'This is the year of all things British, from the Olympics to the Queens Diamond Jubilee so why not celebrate all good things British, including the elusive Clarendon typeface.' Jolanta Zute, Clarendon: You're so my type, retrieved 9th march 2013, taken from http://www.jolantazute.co.uk/clarendon-concept-sewing. I would have loved to have the time and skill to hand sew a poster, but I think I will be better off printing my poster digitally.

Alan Fletcher: Typography Research

Alan Fletcher: Typography Research

Fletcher combines a mixture of type and numbers to create his collage. It looks as if the middle section was taken from a calendar whereas the other parts look as if they have been taken from a newspaper. This piece is satirical because it is a collage of the word collage. The piece is a collage in both word and form but also in both spelling and use of material. Although each font is different, the word Collage is still readable and each section doesn't jar. By mixing fonts and point sizes in an unusual way he is able to take the fonts out of their original settings and use them in a radical way. He said himself that "a typeface is an alphabet in a straitjacket"- Garfield, S. (2010) 'Just My Type: a Book About Fonts', 1st ed., London: Profile Books. So by taking the fonts out of their original contexts, Fletcher is able to take them out of their straitjackets because he sees them as just letters. 

Jonathon Yule: Font Bots

Jonathon Yule: Font Bots

These are Yule's Font-bots created by arranging different letters to create the shape of the robot. Yule uses his favourite sans-serif typeface to create his typographic illustrations. The white letters stand out more due to the colourful contrasting backgrounds. I think the most effective font-bot is the Helvetica one, with the red background. Yule's work contains geometric shapes. This work has been generated on a computer. The work is 2D and the bots are symmetrical. I put this up, because Helvetica and Futura are two of the font I am thinking of using for my poster. I also liked the bold use of colour.

Tutorial 13/03/13

Tutorial 13/03/13

From this tutorial, I looked at other dementia awareness posters, I summarised my research on my blog. I started my visual ideas, and decided what I wanted to communicate. I looked at the Helen Hamlyn centre.

Neville Brody: Type Research

Neville Brody: Type Research

Typeface Two, designed for The Face, 1984, used from issue 50 onwards

Typeface Four, designed for The Face, 1985, used from issue 61 onwards

These are two typefaces created by Neville Brody. They were both designed for the Face magazine
Typeface two- the B and R have similar forms, the same is true for typeface four. Typeface two is a much thicker typeface, than typeface four, and has greater readability at smaller point sizes. Typeface two is very utilitarian and they are both plain. Typeface four is more elongated and quite narrow. I like Neville Brody's bold use of type, I think my poster will have a similar theme, as I want the type to be the main focus.

Research: Community Care and Drug treatments

Community care and Drug treatments

Community Care

·      ‘Community care’ is a general term for services provided to help people with illness or disability to continue to live in their own homes and to encourage independence.

·      Legislation confirms Social Services departments’ responsibility to assess people’s needs (by a procedure known as a needs assessment).

·      The aim is that services will be provided to keep people in their own homes for as long as possible.

·      There are a number of different services designed to support people in their own homes.

·      However, the range and level of services vary a great deal from area to area.

Are any forms of dementia curable?

·      Some rare forms of dementia-including those associated with an under-active thyroid gland, brain tumours, or some vitamin deficiencies (for example, of vitamin B12 ).

·      Most types of dementia, however, cannot be cured and those that can be are very rare.

Drug treatments

·      No drugs have been discovered that can cure Alzheimer’s disease or stop it from getting worse over time.

·      Some dementia drugs are now available that may improve some of the symptoms such as memory loss and disorientation, and can slow down the progression of the symptoms.

·      Other kinds of drugs are sometimes useful for treating some of the changes in behaviour, such as sleeplessness and agitation.

·      The main development has been the introduction of two types of drugs.

·      The first type is called cholinesterase inhibitors or anticholinesterase drugs. These drugs reduce the breakdown of acetylcholine, a chemical found in the brain.

·      Anticholinesterase drugs currently available in the UK include donepezil (Aricept), galantamine (Reminyl) and rivastigmine (Exelon).

·      The second type of drug is NMDA antagonists. NMDA stands for N-methyl-D-aspartate, one of the chemicals involved in memory. At present one drug of this type is available, called memantine (Ebixa).

How do the dementia drugs help people with Alzheimer’s disease?

·      Several clinical trials have found that anticholinesterase drugs seem to relieve some of the symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease in some people.

·      People who take these drugs may experience a slight improvement, but the main effect is that the drugs delay worsening of symptoms of dementia-in some people by up to six months, or even longer.

·      These drugs do not work in all patients and their effect is variable.

Reflection
The main thing I will take from this research is that although dementia isn't curable there are some drugs available which can help if the dementia is caught early enough, which is why it is important for an early diagnosis.