The brief was set by Seb Mayfield from Food Up Front who was aiming to find ways to encourage 16 – 24 year olds to grow some food at home. Below you can see some of the results that came from our second year students working in groups under the direction of Jonas Piet from Engine Service Design. The final client presentations were extremely successful, he wanted to actually do all three.

Some additional information for context:

THE CLIENT
Food Up Front has been supporting individuals to grow food in their unused outdoor space since 2007.  Whether it’s front gardens, balconies, windowsills or back gardens we continue to encourage people to grow and share healthy, natural food. This helps to reduce food miles and dependency on supermarkets, whilst increasing self-reliance and community empowerment.

As the brainchild of Food Up Front, we are very excited that One Pot Pledge® has been launched by Garden Organic, as their 2010/11 national campaign.
As partners in the campaign we will be working with Garden Organic to make sure that lots of people throughout the UK get to experience growing food for the first time.

More here: http://www.foodupfront.org/
And here: http://www.onepotpledge.org


JONAS PIET see his profile here: http://www.enginegroup.co.uk/site/

The Food Front is an entrepreneurial scheme for young people.  As a representative of the Food Front they will grow and sell their own fruit and vegetables, become an active part of their local community and gain business experience. From speaking to young people it was evident that there would be interest in growing vegetables if there was a reason to do so. So we tried to think of a good incentive. We decided that earning money would be a good way of encouraging them to grow food. There will be a voluntary Rep who will work alongside schools to either try to place the campaign in to the schools curriculum or introduce it as an after school activity. The reps main role will be to encourage the Food Front members to consider taking the campaign to their local street as well as provide support and guidance to Food Front workers. We feel that the Food Front would be successful as a campaign to get young people to grow and eat their own fruit and vegetables but also encourage others to eat more food that is organic too. The members will learn to manage and run a small business.

Delayed Satisfaction plays with what can be a long journey of growing your own food and it intends to make the process seem shorter.

The packs are based on four different social experiences - going for a picnic, home cinema, going for some drinks or just having tea - where the customer is encouraged to invite a friend to join them on the experience of growing food with them or just invite them to the social event once the plants are fully grown. Hence the brand, Delayed Satisfaction.

All of the four packs contain two types of seeds which relate to the nature of the final intended event (e.g. camomile and blueberry seeds for the 'Tea at 5' experience), two pots and two bags of soil (we want people to get
their hands dirty), recipes (e.g. to make blueberry muffins from your fully grown blueberries), a window sticker and a surprise present in each pack for your gathering.

The idea is that people get excited about growing, that they share the idea with friends and pass it on. Our packaging was designed to be a desirable product, simple but elegant enough to get someone's attention on markets like Brick Lane, Camden, Old Spitafields, Organic food markets and others. The challenge is to capture a younger audience grow and this product offers involvement, interaction, understanding of growing without a need of much hard work, a balcony or a garden.

Delay Your Satisfaction by getting a richer experience nurtured by you!

Our service takes almost the form of a game. Part of it is the starter pack: this is sold at the most popular retailers among youth to make sure they will know about it. It is very affordable and contains all the necessary stuff for them to start growing. To give people motivation to grow we've created slick design and came up with the following system.

In the starter pack is a bag of unknown seeds. Three types of seeds divided in three sections. Every section has a serial number to identify the seeds later on. Plant seeds in to the soil, stick the serial number there. Take care of your seed; give it enough light, water it and wait for it to sprout. When your plant has grown up and is identifiable go to your online account which you created when bought your starter pack. Choose what you've grown from the list of available plants (in pictures), enter its serial number and press submit button; if your serial number matches the plant type you get points. Points accumulate every time you grow something and then convert to vouchers, which you can spend in your favorite retail shop.