During Autism Awareness Week, we have posted each day on our social media. It was very important for us to be part of it as during testing, it turned out that Flatstone Grove works well with autistic children.
We’ve tried to summarise how we did the planning and how the content is formed.
Research – Robert
I didn’t have much personal experience with autism, and my knowledge was limited. I Googled the ‘autism week’ and every relevant topic.
It was eye-opening for me.
I’ve learned a lot about autism, I’ve read articles and studies, I’ve joined groups and listened to the conversations.
I always knew autism, but I had a different picture in my head…like a distant thought in your head. I knew what it is, but if someone asked me, I would not describe it correctly.
Autism is such a wide spectrum! People who struggle to keep up with the daily tasks to people who have savant mind.
I was extremely nervous about the content.
How will I create the content acceptable for everyone and easily understandable to people like me, who have limited knowledge about autism?
How did we start? – Robert
So at first, I sat down with Anett, who is our graphic designer. She is responsible for many things within the company, such as branding, social media visuals, UI/UX and more. Also, she has graduated as a special education teacher.
Her knowledge was advantageous in planning content to raise awareness of autism.
As we wanted to create one post each day, we tried to figure out the topics first. To stay on the safe side, we came up with 6 ideas.
- ‘Intro’ post
- ‘Autism wordplay’ post
- ‘Famous autistic people’ post
- ‘Signs of autism’ post
- ‘Looking through the autism glasses’ post
- ‘It’s ok to be different’ post
Once we got the ideas, we started to put together the content behind each post. We made drafts, including the visuals.
Looking Through the Autism Glasses Post – Robert
Well, in this post, we wanted to show the sensory differences. For example, a doorbell can be just a doorbell for me, but it can be very loud and even painful for someone on the spectrum. The same applies to taste, vision, touching, texture and so on.
This is something easily understandable for everyone. For example, when I was talking to Magdi, she used this example to make me understand it better. (Magdi is our lead artist and she is an expert in autism).
In the end, we decided not to create this post as we were unsure if we can finish it in time.
The visuals – Anett
I remember that we had a lengthy conversation about the posts, but Robert already had some ideas. Personally, I loved this project, especially the tiny little flowers. They are just cute. The subject is also very close to my heart. Friday’s post with Marci (It’s ok to be different) was my favourite; I would be happy to print it on a shirt and wear it.
I learned a lot about autism in school, but a lot changed since then, and it was very useful to refresh my knowledge.
I liked the challenge to get the visuals informative but straightforward and reflect the content Robi already drafted.
We spent a lot of time finetuning everything, but the subject is important and it is sensitive at the same time. We were thinking through everything at least twice to ensure that all the information and visuals are correct.
All in all, it was a great experience for me to work on this tiny social media project. I liked to use the colours and unify the design with Flatstone Grove and the autism week.
Final Words – Robert
I think we accomplished what we wanted with the posts. We have reached thousands of accounts on different social media platforms and the feedback was very positive. Through the planning & research, I learned a lot about autism and it changed my view on the subject and I was happy to have taken part in it.
We already have the ideas for next year – can’t wait to make them!
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