This fun set of collaterals help address the issue of stress management on a light-hearted manner to address a more serious issue which needs to be carefully examined when one is alone. It also makes the NTU Student Wellbeing Centre more accessible as the tone adopted in this set of stationery is that of offering advice in a friendly way.

With Metaphor as brief, Managing Stress is a visual metaphor for “I’m drowning in work!”

Inspired by the safety manuals onboard planes and boats, the Stress Management campaign takes the form of an informative booklet, publicity posters and a pack of cards containing tips of how to quickly relieve stress.

This creates a direct metaphor which people can easily identify with as they can relate the visual style of this campaign to that of airline or boat safety manuals and posters with the combination of its logo-like illustration as well as simplified line-drawings to illustrate situational images.

The next level of metaphor is depicted by the life-buoy which is one of the main icons of this campaign. The icon flanks the front of the Booklet as well as the Pack of Cards which offer tips and advice to readers. This makes the life-buoy a life-saver to those that will benefit of knowledge to effectively relieve stress.

The third level of metaphor is depicted through the pack of cards offering tips with hands out of water as the die-cut design for each card. With the extraction of each card from the box, the user takes a hand out of the box and ‘saves’ himself/herself from stress with the life-buoy pattern at the back of the card giving a subtle hint of the tip being the life-saver  while tying the cards together with the set by the repetition of the life-buoy icon.

With the NTU Student Wellbeing Centre as the ‘client’, this campaign targets students, staff and faculty within NTU to help them find out symptoms of stress which they may be showing and encourages them to find ways to relieve stress in order to be able to perform optimally without the risk of a breakdown. This is featured by the publicity posters whereby the symptoms are clearly displayed and labelled just like safety posters and offering a lead-up action to approach the Student Wellbeing Centre’s website for more information about Stress Management allowing students to be able to take action on their own should they have any of those stress-related symptoms.

The booklets and deck of cards are materials which the Student Wellbeing Centre can give out to both staff and faculty of NTU during campaigns and especially periods when the exams are drawing near or at the start of the semester to encourage good stress management habits before the workload sets in.