The Problem
Self-Love; regard for one’s own well being and happiness.
Self love is crucial for happiness in your life for many reasons; it means accepting your emotions for what they are and putting your physical, emotional, and mental well being first. When you hold yourself in high esteem, you’re more likely to choose things that nurture your well-being and serve you well. Sometimes loving yourself is something you have to learn. For some of us, that learning process is a lifelong work that builds over time.
I do believe self love is challenging because it is something people struggle with in many ways. Learning how to love ourselves is one of the most important skills we can master in this lifetime. In a world that constantly tells you that you aren’t enough, cultivating self-love is a radical act of self-establishment and self-expression that allows you to stake out your place in the world. When we learn to love ourselves as much as we love others, we actually unlock a number of surprising benefits that can help us transform our lives and turn them into the future that we’ve dreamed of all along. Everyone is human and no one is perfect, everyone has insecurities and that makes us who we are. Loving yourself truly comes with facing what you may hate most about yourself. Maybe it is a body-part or multiple body-parts, or the way you treated someone, or guilt or shame about a situation. The thing is, until you can really shine a light on your insecurities, you will never be truly accepting of yourself.
Self love is becoming more relevant today, and more people are starting to live more in the moment, and care about their physical and emotional appearance and feelings.
Research Question
What strategies can help educate females, ages 19-22, about how to identify/practice self love?
Target Audience
For my project, my target audience has a strong focus on those who identify as female ages 19 to 22 years old. With being in younger years, it is important to learn and understand how to love yourself early on, so you may carry on into your adult life with a positive outlook on yourself and your personal self-love journey.
Research
Research methods for this project included visual materials, an online survey, and semi-structured interviews. I read through articles, listened to podcasts, watched vlog posts on YouTube, stalked the hashtag self-love on Instagram, created a survey that gained over ninety responses, led semi-structured interviews pertaining to the topic of self love, and developed a love language test that corresponds with each ones’ personal self love needs.
“ Took myself on a date last night. & let me tell you, ya girl showed herself a great time. I feel like myself again. I feel recharged. I feel so whole. I havent loved myself like this in years. Enjoy the little things. #selflove ”
Design Process + Testing
Throughout my process, I wanted to focus on creating a solution that captivated my target audience; those who identify as female ages nineteen to twenty-two years old. I wanted to use my survey and interview results to create a design solution that would benefit ones’ emotional and physical appearance on a higher level. Through vibrant and engaging imagery, typography, and colors, my ending goal was to fascinate and grab ahold the attention of a younger audience and entice them to want to participate in a personalized self-love experience brought to their doorstep.
“On my personal healing journey, I have learned about the power of self love and self-care but I felt like I didn’t know how to do those things.”
“I want someone or something that explained to me good practices and suggestions for me to do.”
With taking into account feedback above from the two quotes I pulled, I decided to test my idea with those who interviewed with me prior. Through my conversations, I learned that self-love was an excellent topic because people enjoy talking about wanting to feel good about themselves.
Design Solution
The soul mate box is a self-contained personalized experience brought right to the customer’s doorstep. The consumer would first find out about The Sole Mate Box through social media. On social media platforms such as Instagram, sponsored ads would appear on their feed, prompting them to take our quiz on our website.
Our quiz would first ask the consumer what city they lived in; this is the most important question, as each city will dictate what places and items one would receive in their personalized box. The quiz is based off of a love language test, in which the results of the quiz help contribute to bettering ones’ self-love and acceptance of themselves through confidence and emotion.
Lastly, the consumer would receive their box based off their self-love language results from the quiz they took online at their doorstep. This box is branded based off one of the five themes: Words of Affirmation, Physical Touch, Receiving Gifts, Quality Time, or Acts of Service.
“Wow, what a fun and engaging expereince to take yourself on. I loved the pairing of locations and items because I never know where to go or what to do when I am feeling down.”
