The Youth and Road Safety Action Kit is here and the journey that has led up to its final publication has been a creative one for both the YOURS team and the designers behind the kit: Airspace Studio. From its inception to creative mapping, the Youth and Road Safety Action Kit was designed from scratch including the whole 3D city that is featured throughout the kit. See behind the scenes.

Sometimes, when we pick up a publication and think, “that is really cool”, we often do not realize how much work really goes into the finished result. With this in mind, we feature a special article looking at the creative process behind our new Youth and Road Safety Action Kit. So far, feedback from both young people and road safety experts has been remarkable and the unique 3D city featured in the Kit gives a unique feel to this youth document.

In an exclusive interview with the designers of the Kit, Airspace Studio, we spoke to Mr Mark Woodwood who was the lead designer behind the kit.

What made you come up with the idea of the 3D city?
A recent trip to Copenhagen inspired the idea of creating something in 3D. When I got back to the studio I had this idea floating around in my head. I was impressed by the wooden toys in Denmark, and upon starting the project I wanted to create the the effect of a city out of wood. This was fairly difficult and soon became time consuming, hence using paper which turned out better in the end.

The concept of building a 3D world came from the idea of an road map, this later developed in to a map that encompassed different terrain from desert to city. The road map was able to re-create scenarios highlighted in the original Action Kit text document. In meetings with the YOURS team, it soon became evident that the design also needed to consider different road users and rules, such as cycle lanes and speeding signs, bus stops and zebra crossings.

How did you go about turning it into a reality?
It took around 15 days and several different versions of the road map before we had a design that we were all happy with. It was a real team effort with the YOURS team to make sure we were covering a global demographic. Our early meetings mostly consisted of snap shots of the road map model until we were ready to do a professional job.

We turned a corner of the design studio into a photography studio with lights and gels the full works, and spent 3 days photographing the model and the paper people. Following this we spent around a week cleaning up the images and retouching the paper characters into the images based on storyboard sketches.

The whole process was created from an previously approved storyboard. So next we started wit the actual design of the kit from an editorial design perspective. We had a rough idea how much text was needed for each page but it was important to create clear space so the text could breathe. A kit-of-parts was created, consisting of a grid system for the pages, typography styles and colours that would work with the photography. We also created a series of charts and diagrams made from paper and photographed to give the kit a consistent feel.

Once the preferred concept was approved we created the artwork for the document. This is the technical side and involves the artwork team who make sure the whole document has correctly aligned graphics, numbers, text are correctly aligned, colour is consistent, images are all of a certain format with the same colour  output. It is then proof-read and finally made print ready, packaged and sent to the printer. We schedule a time to visit the printers when they start the printing to ensure quality and correct colour output, before finally receiving the completed Action Kit.

How you feel with the end result?
We are very happy with the end result. I think we have the YOURS team to thank for this as well. It is very rare that a client shares the risk on a job like this and they believed in the idea, which wasn’t exactly the safe option. We all wanted to create something that would appeal to a youthful demographic and hopefully we have all achieved this. I would be interested to hear how it is received by the people who will be using the Action Kit.

You can also see a video montage of the kit in creation in the right column!

The European Youth Declaration for Road Safety adopted in late 2011 at the European Youth Forum for Road Safety has been passed on to national road safety decision makers around Europe. At the forum, youth leaders from across Europe gathered to share best practices in youth and road safety issues around Europe and adopted the European Youth Declaration for Road Safety.

The European Youth Forum for Road Safety is an annual event organized by The European Commission and Responsible Young Drivers Belgium. YOURS has been involved with the event since 2010 and continues to have involvement into 2011 and beyond.

The day began with clear policy orientations of the European Union presented by Isabelle Kardacz, director of the road safety department at the European Commission. Her presentation described strategy and actions for the coming decade 2011-2020. Mrs Kardacz expressed, “This youth forum is an important element for reducing the amount of young people being killed on Europe´s roads, you need to go away from this foum as you did last year and implement action´.

One of the most momentous actions that took place cames in the form of the European Youth Declaration for Road Safety. YOURS helped draft the declaration which calls for sustainable road safety action across Europe for the years ahead. The declaration will empower the European youth delegates to initiate action in their nations under the mandate of European Youth Ambassador for Road Safety. This is not just another declaration, among other things, its content focusses on: 

•   The road safety problem in Europe facing young people.
•   The commitment of the European youth delegates to implement action for road safety.
•   The importance of the contiunation of the forum in Europe.
•   To encourage the development and implementation of policy and initiatives to make European roads safer.

The Declaration has started to gain momentum around Europe as delegates have handed over the document to key road safety decision makers in their respective nations. Some of the endorsements are featured below:

We are engaging accountability for the dissemination of this very declaration. So far, we have forwarded the declaration to the Department for Transport in Saxony Anhalt. The relevant consultant received it very interestedly and assured us, to help in its further national distribution. After we presented our “Peer-Project in driving schools” in a trainee center, that offers postgraduate professional education for driver instructor, we got the chance to hand out the declaration to each attending driver instructor.
 

Maikki said ‘She was impressed by our work and emphasized the importance of peer-to-peer work. Her message to you: black belt is difficult to achieve in sports but on European roads it’s easy to put on and save lives!’

More information about the EYFRS Youth Decalaration will follow shortyl!

On April 19 2012, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a new resolution set to improve global road safety. Resolution A/66/L.43 recognizes the global public health and development burden resulting from road traffic crashes, while taking into account the efforts made by some low and middle income countries to implement best practices, set ambitious targets and monitor road traffic fatalities.

This latest UN General Assembly resolution on road safety was sponsored by the Russian Federation, and co-sponsored by an additional 80 countries. During the discussions strong statements of support were made by representatives of the governments of Barbados, Brazil, Ethiopia, Iceland, Malaysia, Mexico, Oman, the Russian Federation, and Syria as well as the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

You can read the full resoultion in the attachment on the right column!