Olivia Kinnane
As a final year student, the expectation to jump straight into a career is huge and taking a gap year carries a stigma. For those who do choose to take time out, there's no real framework to help them structure or make sense of the experience.
Storylines is a fictional service funded by Erasmus+, providing guidance to final year college students. It gives students a framework to document their gap year across four areas: Travel, Skills, Work, and Volunteering. Through a social media campaign, pop-up on-campus events, and a personalised report, Storylines helps students turn their time out into something tangible, real-world skills they can speak to, backed by a report they can attach to their CV.
Check out the instagram @shapeyourgapyear
Storylines was created to challenge the stigma around taking a gap year after graduation. For college students who choose to step back before stepping into a career, there is currently no framework to help them structure or make sense of that time.
The goal of this project is to demonstrate that the real-world skills gained through a year out are just as valuable as academic qualifications and to give students the tools to prove it.
Young people are fearful about their future, and in Ireland, more people are leaving than returning. Storylines was created in response to that feeling. It's a service designed to reassure young college students that it's okay not to have everything figured out and to encourage them to discover what's out there.
Navigation and wayfinding systems are a core element that affect how users experience and move throughout a space. In complex environments such as hospitals, navigation becomes more important as users rely heavily on implemented wayfinding. This thesis breaks down the Irish healthcare system’s relationship with wayfinding systems in place, analysing developments and challenges within the healthcare environment and highlighting the societal and disability hierarchies within society. Environments depend on users’ problem-solving skills and ability to identify surroundings, implying the system’s lack of understanding of user needs.
To investigate this topic, field research was conducted in both St. Vincent’s University Hospital and the National Rehabilitation Hospital, analysing the wayfinding systems in place. Interviewing staff members, allowed me to have a understanding of what working in these environments looks and feels like, also highlighting the need for accessible design to create user-friendly healthcare environments and equality for all.
Hey, I'm Olivia, a Dublin-based designer. I’m interested in visual identities and storytelling rooted in strategy and creative problem-solving. I aim to design for everyone and create a positive influence. During my time at IADT, I worked on the Art for Alzheimer's initiative and spent 5 months at Real Nation, where I grew a lot both creatively and professionally. I'm not interested in adding noise to the world. I want to think big and make a big impact.
