Beat-Root
Beat Root is a toolkit that promotes physical fitness by increasing the intensity of regular exercise week-by-week for 100 days. The kit acts like a personal trainer, raising their self-esteem through small daily (and achievable) actions. The cards encourage users to train one of four main muscle groups each day. A fifth card section gives users the chance to recover through a variety of rest and reflection tasks.
Initial Research
I began by researching the client, LUSH, to understand how my toolkit will be designed to suit their needs. I then started to educate myself on the health benefits of exercise and discovered that incorporating small forms of exercise into the day, focusing on training one muscle group daily, is the most effective form of building training the body and successfully promoting raised self-esteem.
Who will benefit from this toolkit?
This toolkit had to be designed to be used by a festival-goer in order to motivate them to incorporate exercise into their routine, developing a permanent habit post-festival.
Initial routes
I wanted to experiment with very different styles initially to ensure I have explored maximum possible outcomes. The first idea was to promote physical activity using a personal trainer to build a manageable routine and a long-lasting habit of exercise. The second route aimed to promote exercise by connecting the user with nature, encouraging them to go on regular, manageable walks. The final route was visually bold and energising and the aim was to incorporate exercise into the user’s daily routine..
Developing one route
I chose to develop the personal training route as it was the most practical and effective concept. The characters were originally hand-illustrated using pen and acrylic; to make the outcome suitable for the client, I independently learnt how to use illustrator, a skill that looking back, has been very valuable to my journey as a designer.
Initial outcomes
I illustrated 5 confident, eye-catching and sporty vegetables, created to act as the user’s personal trainers, who encourage them to follow their lead to complete a training routine. These characters were intentionally illustrated as playful to implement a friendly tone to a highly professional training program. I then began designing mock-ups of the card deck, starting to check the practicalities of my concept.
Prototype: Box
Printing and constructing the first prototype was crucial to testing how the box would be perceived by the user. Functionally, the box aims to raise awareness of the mental and physical benefits of habitual exercise by the bright and positive tone demonstrated by the personal trainer vegetables.
Prototype: Card Deck
The cards are categorised into 5 sections, 4 of which focusing on training one muscle group per day, the fifth incorporating rest and reflective activities (eg. Journaling, breathing techniques and yoga) into the days the user is not working out. These cards can be used either by themselves or compliment the 96-day planner which instructs users on which muscles to train on what day of the week.The idea behind this systematic program was drawn from researching creditable fitness training examples, approved by personal trainers to work effectively.
What's Inside the Box?
Inside of the box, the user finds a pack of 50 cards, a 96 Day Planner and a motivational poster, stickers, 2 greaseproof papers, and 3 Lush products. I was pleased with the overall brand identity of my toolkit as the vibrant colour palette compliments the positive sporty characters, immediately motivating users to investigate the kit and enjoy this guided journey of achieving higher self-esteem over time.
Habit Tracker and Poster
The function of the poster was to be hung up on the wall or stuck on the fridge door, with the purpose of engaging with and inspiring the users to continue with their training programme with the motivation of achieving high self-esteem. The planner is structured into 14 weeks, mirroring a personal trainer’s guidance to progressively intensify exercises for mental and physical growth. Using a three-level system (bronze, silver, gold), the planner prompts users to repeat or hold moves for specified counts, with increments every 3-4 weeks as they reach the bronze, silver and gold levels accordingly.
