Visit Maysten!

So, awards have lost their glitter, and I'm starting to care less.

For my final project of the first semester, I had one final brief. It was the final competition brief and it was the daddy off all the of them; the D&AD brief.

Now, two years earlier I'd be so excited about this, but right then, I really wasn't. I'm bored of these competitions, they only prove to be a way to exploit students ideas and they are all run by companies, aiding companies. The only people who gain from them are the companies.

Yes perhaps you could win and get your name on centre stage, and it'll look fantastic on your CV, but once the hype has faded and people loose and care about your pencil; you are right back where you started and the company you designed for just got great design, without paying a single designer.

So when this came round, I weighed up my options and I thought I'd choose the only option that was a charity Amnesty International, because competition or not; I'd do free work for them anyway.

Amnesty wanted to 'Make Injustice Personal' by linking to the youth market and allowing them to relate and involve themselves with the charity.

And with some talking to my tutors, I realised the best way to jump this brief into action—was to annoy the young people of this world. How do you do that? I heard you ask. Block them from social media.

I invented Maysten, the hermit nation; an anagram of Amnesty. The idea is that you would be enticed to visit Maysten—have the maysten experience, of which you'll very quickly realise it's an experience that you didn't really want.

Upon accessing the website, you instantly become a member of the hermit state. You are a number, you are locked out and you are barraged by as much propaganda material as possible.

Trying to access social media is hopeless, you are re-directed to state approved social accounts, of which only one exists. The account of the supreme ruler; with a surprising likeness to Mao and the Jong-Il family.

Acessing anywhere else on the internet is even more difficult. You haven't even the mundane writings of the supreme ruler to entertain you. Merely propaganda, and a clear message of restricted freedom.

Clearly, you cannot stay in this state forever. For a young person, restricted access of the internet for the rest of their life would be one sure fire way to hate Amnesty International; so to combat this, from the moment you become locked out, you are on a single hour timer to the time of your release.

The idea for this, is to give make injustice personal, it is to unfairly silence you and draw upon the restrictions that people lie through each and every day. Hopefully this poorly pieces together GIF will help explain it.

So Amnesty, if you see this, please contact me; lets make something cool! But for god sake don't make me compete to help you make some good design. Also, I know I said I'd work for free, but I demand my own empire, 6 packs of sugar free Smints and a miniature pony.