Aspergers Treatment Product Line

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I'm a student at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco and I am working on a project in one of my classes concerning Aspergers Syndrome. We are designing packaging for a line of medical treatments (dietary and other included, total of 8 to 9 products) and I was interested in knowing what a person with the disorder would like to see in such packaging. Such as a particular graphics style (images, no images), hierarchy of the typography, or even present a conceptual idea behind the way the packaging should look.

Any guidance in this area would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

-A list of possible products would be helpful as well.

This is a forum for people with Asperger's famous for their direct communications style.

You have been warned.

How about products THAT ACTUALLY WORK?

Oh. There aren't any,

Call it Aspercream! I've trademarked that now, PM me and we'll discuss licensing

Nah, but seriously, I won't help you sell bogus Asperger's cures and I doubt many other members here will, either.

Snake Oil
Bullsh_t
Hot Air
Shinola
Soup Stones
Deeds to various public bridges
Invisible designer clothing
a two bit ring from a Crackerback jox


and that's when I woke up...

Acceptance.

It is like creating a package for people who have blue eyes and asking what they would like...

Last edited by SuperApsie on 08 Nov 2010, 4:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Bwhahahaha

Don't say I didn't warn you.

I did see that this as a exercise in packaging design. So I'm thinking commercial art. Giving you the benefit of the doubt, I'm suspecting you did not intend to promote any so called "cure"

Before you run away screaming, what made you pick Asperger's?

Wait a minute... I don't think the OP meant that she is designing product labels for products designed to treat or cure Asperger's. What I got was that she is designing product labels for products -- like dietary aids -- that would appeal to people with AS.

If so, here's one idea: make it simple and make it appeal to our senses of order and completeness. We like groupings and sets and collections. We are (or at least I am) notoriously awful at being able to combine disparate elements into a coherent whole. Sorry, that's too abstract. Say, for example, you want me to buy your vitamins, your herbal supplements, your energy bars, and your bottled water. Make me feel like I'm buying the "complete set" by packaging things very similarly -- color, graphics, size, shape, etc. That would go a long way toward making me feel like I was getting the whole package and decreasing the stress of having to make it up myself.

Another thing, and more toward the substance of what's inside the package: don't give us 18 choices -- different combinations and percentages of ingredients or sizes of package. I cannot choose a multivitamin, for instance, because I just can't decide how much Vitamin C relative to how much Thiamin I should be taking. I also don't know if I need the 50 tablet bottle, the 100 tablet bottle, or the 200 tablet bottle. I totally freeze up in the face of such meaningless distinctions. Basically, confronted with several different but basically similar options among which I have to choose, the exit door always looks like the best option. Google "Buridan's Ass" for a decent (although not totally accurate) description of my decision-making process (or lack thereof).

With respect to your question overall, here's what you are not going to find from us: our favorite color, our favorite font and font size, our favorite material and texture, or any other silly thing like that. We all have strong likes and dislikes, but we're all different in what those are. You may find a consensus about conceptual things (like I tried to give you above), but not about particulars -- like graphics style, etc. as you suggest you might.

A pea green pea coat like the one that Mick Avory wore in 1966 would look nice on me, but made to button on the right, instead of the left.

snowraintree posted: I'm a student at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco and I am working on a project in one of my classes concerning Aspergers Syndrome. We are designing packaging for a line of medical treatments (dietary and other included, total of 8 to 9 products) and I was interested in knowing what a person with the disorder would like to see in such packaging. Such as a particular graphics style (images, no images), hierarchy of the typography, or even present a conceptual idea behind the way the packaging should look. Any guidance in this area would be greatly appreciated. Thank you. -A list of possible products would be helpful as well.
---
Full ingredient disclosure labeling on all products is needed. This is based on reading a How To (understand) Hyperactivity book (1981) about ADHD Inattentive by C. Thomas Wild which is about the fact that a few food additives (not all food additives) like FD&C Yellow Food Color No. 5 (tartrazine) and the artificial sweetener, sodium saccharin, can act in a few persons like undisclosed powerful drugs and cause subtle, temporary changes in such areas as sleep patterns and normal scrapes/wound healing. Wild is clear to say that food additives do not cause classic hyperactivity at all but there is a need for full disclosure ingredient labeling for foods and drugs.

Also, am very aware that medicines can work a little (not a cure) for a few of those with the many epilepsies and the four ADHDs but I am under the impression that drugs simply do not work for Asperger's or Autism (simplified).

If you have come up with products which really help Asperger's/etc., that's a good thing.

Hi everyone. Sorry for the misconception with my post. I am not attempting to sell or package any [/i]cure[i] for Asperger's just producing new packages to products geared to appeal to those with AS and help "manage" symptoms.

RainingRoses, thanks for your input, that was exactly what I was hoping to get insight into, not favorite colors, typefaces, etc, but overall aesthetic or buying behavior which you presented. Knowing how to handle the system as a whole and what to not focus on (like countless options which you stated) and what I could better in current designs is very helpful.

As to answer wavefreak58's question of why I chose Asperger's I have always been interested in the autism spectrum and Asperger's as the "high-functioning" equivalent of that. I also felt that focusing on a issue like Asperger's and not designing for something as simple as the common headache would be far more satisfying as well.

With the intent of adding to what rainingroses said:

Many people with ASD's have extremely sensitive senses. If you take the typical approach of using the brightest, highest contrast colors possible and use fonts that try to jump off the packaging to get consumers; attention - you might, literally, make the people you intend to target run away crying.

I started a thread this afternoon as I was eating my lunch concerning why I eat the exact same lunch every single day. A number of people have replied, and it seems to me that you might gain some additional insights there. Granted, it's about how most of us are not particularly thrilled when someone or something throws a wrench into our meal plans, but you'll learn a lot about choices/buying behavior there, I think: http://www.wrongplanet.net/modules.php? ... 92#3166292


I wonder if you'll end the semester kicking yourself in the behind for not choosing headaches? You may like herding cats, I don't know...

lol, Academy of Art University. That place is even worse than SFSU. I hope you enjoy working at Home Depot, Orchard Supply Hardware, Berkeley Honda, AC Transit, or Kragen...

actually, all sarcasm and school/job-bashing aside, you can make products look like actual pharmaceuticals. Make a really snazzy label with subdued colors and feel-good type faces and put the product warnings on the bottom label.

That's not really being sarcastic; sarcasm usually has some modicum of humor associated with it. Your post was just rude and mean-spirited. Not really sure what the point of it was -- to prove to an NT art student that we're a bunch of antisocial a**holes? Thanks for that. Some of us like to think we get along with people in the world outside of WP.

Well you didn't run away screaming.

Simplicity is key for me. I HATE anything that tries to pack huge amounts of information in a small space. I can't stand "New and Improved" splashed over an image. Partly because aesthetically it's like fingernails on a chalk board and partly because 'new and improved' is an empty phrase that can be applied to a product for the thinnest of reasons.

When generic foods first came out, they would be packaged in white boxes or cans that just said what was in them. Picture a big white box with big black letters saying corn flakes. That was it. Who needs a freaking sunrise over fields of corn in full color, vitamin enriched all natural whole grain complete breakfast help your children do better in school nutrition blah blah blah? They're corn flakes for god's sake.

OK. So block letters on white is maybe a bit too extreme, but you get the drift.