:Designing Humor — Employing Humor, Wit, and Play as a Strategy to Address Serious Issues

Abstract

Throughout the history of communication and design, wit and humor have been effectively used to create meaningful messages that promote products and ideas. This thesis seeks to identify the benefits of humor, wit, and play, and how they contribute to messages designed for raising community awareness, specifically around issues commonly deemed as serious or unfunny.

This case study looks at humor as a communication tool, a strategy to convey ideas in memorable ways. To demonstrate the viability of humor as a strong communication technique, a “serious/unfunny” issue was selected to test this concept. Through desktop research, interviews, and user focus groups, a campaign was developed to raise awareness of the increasing risks of colorectal cancer to young adults. This text details the research and development of this campaign as well as the positive and negative results after its implementation.