Page 1 of the sleep brochure
Page 2 of the sleep brochure
Sleep has been a sustained interest of mine throughout the entirety of the semester and picking a research topic that was so close to home ended up being a wise choice. For my DIAC I embarked on a journey to inform people about the losses that occur when sleep doesn’t come, and about the gains that occur when it does. That being said, for the following genre remix project, it seemed like a logical progression to take the information I had acquired about sleep loss and present in a more relatable and simplistic way.
Entering into college, one of the main things that incoming freshmen are warned about is the miniscule amount of sleep they should be prepared to get. Survivors of Organic Chemistry and Western Civilization proudly proclaim the number of all-nighters they pulled for a particular exam, without knowing what it’s costing them and those around them. Being a college freshman myself and being surrounded by those types of people, I understand the pressure of falling into the bad habit of sacrificing sleep for a couple extra hours of cramming. I also have a unique perspective living with insomnia, and can understand the frustration of students who have issues falling and staying asleep. The remix I have created caters to both sides of the college student spectrum: those avoiding sleep and those begging for it. The idea to use a brochure to informatively and casually present ways to get more sleep in addition to informing students about the detriments of sleep loss came in the form of a class discussion. A brochure, it seemed, would be the most appropriate form of brief information presentation because of the fast-paced nature of student life. Starting the project, I had the idea to include information about Cougar Counseling Services as well as Student Health Services at the college gave me a creative goal to reach and a way to make the brochure personally tailored for College of Charleston students.
Moving from catering to an audience with a familiarity of academic writing styles and interpretations of scientific journal publications to an audience with a 7-second attention span presented several challenges; the first being the need to pick the most relevant information out of my DIAC. I was stuck, waist-deep in a rut full of information thinking “How do I get them to care?” It took me several days —effortfully combing through my DIAC — to realize that in order for the brochure to be successful, the focus had to be on the needs of the students, and not a proclamation of the research I had done. I started looking beyond my own work, studying statistics put out by the Sleep Foundation and the Center for Disease Control about how much sleep young adults need in order to function efficiently. I stumbled upon blogs written by college students themselves about tricks they had learned to aid in sleep. And I talked to my peer group, actual College of Charleston students about their own sleep habits, until I had a cohesive picture of how to meaningfully benefit my new audience through the genre of a brochure.
The nature of a brochure is a simplistic and visually appealing presentation of information. There is a delicate balance between visuals and text that must hold the attention of the viewer long enough to intrigue them to read the text. Seeing no need to revise the typical “brochure” genre to fit my new exigence, and having little to no experience with creating brochures, I examined several medically informative examples in order to gain a better understanding of what the genre called for. I ended up following a template designed by the website Canva. In addition the constraints established by my own mental representation of what the content of the brochure should hold, I found myself again restraining my genre remix’s progress because of my need for aesthetic perfection. Canva provided a crutch to lean on as I fumbled around with text box sizes, color palates, and clip-art images until in total I ended up making 5 or 6 drafts of the same brochure.
Following the advice of my professor and in an attempt to personalize the content of my revised text, I went around my residence hall collecting quotes from my peers about their sleep habits to include on one of the panels. I ended up using a quote from my roommate who seemed to me like the perfect recipient for a sleep themed brochure because of her need to get 10+ hours of sleep each night if she wanted to be successful the following day. The burgundy and white color scheme — indicative of the College of Charleston — also helps create a more personalized experience for the audience of the brochure and reiterates the exigence made specifically for CofC students.
Following the genre of the brochure, I feel that I was successfully able to convey the vital message of sleep importance while still centering around the needs of those unable to fall asleep. Moving from a desire to exclusively convey knowledge of the detriments of sleep loss, to the realization that the remediation project itself needed to be more of a guide than a fact-book, gave me purpose and drive to create something beneficial in the lives of my peers. I am currently in the process of working to implement the brochures in the Cougar Counseling Center as well as Student Health Services, and I hope in the near future that the work that I have done will positively impact the lives of students struggling with sleep.
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