First Mockup: Sensory Box

What is a sensory box?

Sensory boxes are used for practicing self-soothing in times of stress, anxiety and low mood. It contains elements to focus and calm yourself through the five senses:

• Touch
• Taste
• Hear
• See
• Smell

My Response

I thought of a few ideas for each sense to try out in a sensory box mock-up and narrowed it down to the few that I thought would be the most effective.

Touch: Bubble wrap, play-dough, modelling clay, stress ball, precious stones

Taste: CHOCOLATE?! Or mints?

Hear: ~this one is difficult~ I might just make a notepad/playlist list pad?

See: Motivational postcards, posters, badges, activities, stickers

Smell: Scented candles, incense sticks, lavender bags

Context

I discovered that The Sad Ghost Club ran a workshop on how to create a sensory box back in January, which was aimed at the target audience that I am looking at! (I feel like I am basing the entirety of my project on the sad ghost club but I promise that I am not copying and that I thought of the idea before I discovered it!)

Process

I gathered things from around my bedroom, and went out and bought a few bits and bobs to put in my mock-up box (the box I used was one that I bought some fairy lights in!) that was just a bit larger than A4 size. 

The contents included:

• An emergency chocolate bar (taste)
• Motivational postcards x4 (see)
• A 'happy songs' playlist list (hear)
• Incense sticks (smell)
• Bubble wrap (touch)
• Baby Cacti! (not sure about these, but thought it might be a good idea for having the responsibility to care for something?)

Good Points

• Good starting point, set a strong foundation in which I can build on
• Appropriate use of imagery and language
• Five senses are attended to accurately

Points I can improve

• Refine the imagery, create patterns and colour schemes specific to the target audience
• Does it need to be sensory? Might have more potential to develop if it was based on image based and illustrative solutions
• Don't think I need the cacti...

Reflection

My first mockup was successful in helping me refine what will actually go inside the box. Through testing out the specific concept of a sensory box, I have discovered that maybe this isn't the most suitable path to follow, and that perhaps I should explore more image based solutions that place more emphasis on the content of the design, rather than the product (chocolate being an example). This mock-up has also been helpful in terms of planning sizes; I realised that this box is pretty big, and would take a lot of content to fill it, therefore I will scale down the size a little.

Plan of Action

Over the next couple of days I plan to decide on the final contents within the self-care box, then develop the appropriate nets and file documents in Illustrator and Indesign, which will set me off in the right path to developing appropriate imagery, pattern and language.