Positive Affirmation Card Deck

Innovation, Creative

Role

Developed during my time as a Behavior Intervention Specialist working with K-6 grade children. This was a personal project in which I acted as the researcher and graphic designer.

Overview

During my time as a Behavior Intervention Specialist, I found that many of our clients were in need of confidence building.

After collecting research and testing products that weren’t working for our clients my team needed something that would stand up to constant daily use across 30+ clients and 6 Behavior Intervention Specialists.


Purpose

The Positive Affirmation Card Deck was created for a behavioral intervention team working within an area school district.

These cards were needed as a way to reach young students and engage in discussions about their feelings, problems, or hopes. Cards could be used for group or one-on-one sessions.

The Goal & Objective

To create a deck of cards consisting of positive affirmations, education regarding affirmations, and possible journaling prompts to further continue with introspective learning regarding affirmations.

How might we’s

  • How might we create a design that allows for seamless education without bogging down the user?

  • How might we develop a product that could be used by adults and children to grow introspectively and understand how they can become who they want to be?

  • How might we encourage deep thought on tough topics of self and goals?

  • How might we make cards that will stand up to daily use by multiple staff and students?

Research

Before development began, it was imperative to understand why and how positive affirmation works, how it could become habit forming, and alternative ways to add to the discussion of the affirmation through education, journaling, and reflection.

Competitive Analysis

Final Result

self-affirmations can restore self-competence by allowing individuals to reflect on sources of self-worth, such as core values
— Cascio cn, et al, 2015

Duration

1 month (December 2019)

Design

Each Card uses prompts around to engage users in acknowledging or understanding the focus of the card. There are glyphs around the card that a behavior interventionist could use to start discussion if the student struggles to speak openly.

The existing positive affirmations are aimed at adults, and lack the reinforcing and educational part we need for kids to teach them how to identify and deal with emotions, and build confidence.
— behavior intervention specialist

It was also important to understand alternative products on the market and study what they were successful at and what they were lacking for the project’s ultimate goals.

When looking at other positive affirmation decks common aspects in those that our team preferred were the scale of the card and of the affirmation text.

Decks that seemed oversized and printed on thick cardstock seemed as though they would stand up to the multi-client use it was needed for.

past research suggests that self-transcending values and goals may be particularly powerful
— Bursen et al, 2012

Result

Each Positive Affirmations package contains over 50 cards to avoid repeating affirmations. They are large, handheld cards that were designed to mimic the size of a tarot deck.

our findings suggest that positive affirmations may have especially strong effects within the reward system in conjunction with future orientation.
— Cascio CN et al, 2015

Team

Personal Project

Tools

Adobe Illustrator

Scope

Graphic Design, Research, Usability Testing