Silver Social Design · 2017
X alarm Cigarette Filter
by Ladan Zadfar and Mohammad Farshad
- A' Design Award 2017 Silver Winner in Social Design
- Awarded April 15, 2017
- CLIENT: Creator studio
- Estimated Number of Design Views: 65,012
- Verification code A7FC098132 · Verify this award
About X alarm Cigarette Filter
X alarm, is an alarm for smokers to make them realize what they are doing to themselves while they are doing it.This design is a new generation of cigarette filters .This design can be a good replacement for expensive advertisements against smoking and it has more influence on smokers minds than any other negative advertising.It has a very simple structure, the filters are stamped with an invisible ink that covers the negative area of the sketch and with each puff the sketch will appear clearer so with each puff you will see your heart is getting darker and you know what is happening to you.
Press Kit
- Unique Properties
- X alarm looks like any other regular filter at first, but when you start smoking, each puff makes a sketch visible on the top part of filter, it is designed in a way that the negative area of the sketch will be covered with a colorless ink (sketches such as a heart, a lung, male and female signs and so many other things that smoking affects). It may seem so simple but what we aimed is the minds of smokers .
- Dimensions & Packaging
- Our design is meant to be the exact size of the surface of any cigarette filter brands .
- Tags
- warning, cigarette filter, life, health, Cancer, Lungs, environment, smoke, tobacco, X alarm
- Production Technology
- This design can be done just by adding a step to the production line of the company.Cigarettes will be stamped with a colorless ink. This ink will cover the negative area of sketch so we actually cover the air holes and smoke won't pass through them, smoke will be led into sketch area. That will make the sketch clearer with each puff. The machine that does the stamping has several heads, each head has a different sketch.So smokers will see a different sketch each time they light up a cigarette.
- Design Challenge
- The difficult part of creating this design was to think of the best way to remind smokers what they are doing to themselves . Our intention was to tell our massage in a way that the smokers would not be able to condone the fact we were trying to tell .So we decided to work on cigarette filters , the next step was to show the smokers what they were doing with their body with each puff . With this idea we will be able to remind smokers what they are doing while they are doing it.
- Project Duration
- This idea was contributed in World Design Impact Prize 2015.2016 in Aug 12, 2015 from Iran
- Operation Flow
- These sketches will be stamped randomly and put in cigarette pockets so smokers will see a different sketch each time they light up a cigarette. This random distribution lets our massage be a new one all the time so smokers can't get used to it. We are certain that this will be very effective because these massages will be seen during the time a person smokes a cigarette and that is why it will make him think of what he is doing to his body!
- Research
- We did a major research on cigarettes and smoking habits .Cigarette and tobacco are known as the second cause of death in the world. It takes 6 million lives a year which means every 6 seconds a person dies because of smoking.15000000000 cigarettes are being smoked daily in the world. As we all know smoking is one of the original causes for cancer. This design has a deep mental effect on smokers, it is not expensive, it is easy to perform and it can be mass produced.
- Inspiration
- There are about 1,300,000,000 smokers in the world. Cigarette is the basis factor of non-contagious illnesses such as heart diseases, serious pulmonary infections and cancers, that these cause about 60 percent of deaths in the world. Cigarette and tobacco are known as the second cause of death! Hundreds of people die every year because of secondary smoke! We wanted to remind smokers the danger of each cigarette and its effect on their lives and other people's lives.
- Image Credits
- Photographer Mohammad Farshad
illustration LADAN ZADFAR
Colors of X alarm Cigarette Filter
Design Interview about X alarm Cigarette Filter
The idea was to aware smokers about what they are doing to themselves. We wanted to show them what they are doing while they are doing it.
The focus was to create a way for warning smokers that they could not get used to it because as we all know there are some warnings on cigarette pockets but it may get the smokers' attention for once and after a while they learn to ignore it . What we really focused on was finding a way that the smokers could not ignore or get used to.
We are definitely planing to offer our design to interested companies.
Sometimes we forget how dangerous could something we know as a habit or an amusement be. We wanted to remind smokers the danger of each cigarette and its effect on their lives and other people lives so we came up with an idea, a simple design that can effect everyone!
We surly plan to offer it to companies that show interest to this design.
Cigarette and tobacco are known as the second cause of death in the world. It takes 6 million lives a year which means every 6 seconds a person dies because of smoking. It was our intention to do something about this number. We have to make smokers believe that what they are doing is really dangerous, so we can give them another chance for enjoying a long healthy life.
The target customers for this design are the world health organization, health institutions and governments.
When we are doing something that we are aware of its harm and we notice a sign against our action, that sign becomes more and more distractive every time, actually it becomes annoying! This design can distract the smokers and show them the dark side of their habit, the dark side that they were ignoring!
We came up with the name considering our purpose of this design.Which was giving an awareness as an alarm of danger.
The randomness of the sketches that appears on the cigarettes in one pocket lets our massage be a new one all the time so smokers can't get used to it. We are certain that this will be very effective because these massages will be seen during the time a person smokes a cigarette and that is why it will make him think of what he is doing to his body!
We worked on this design as a group of two people (Ladan Zadfar and Mohammad Farshad).
This design can be done just by adding a step to the production line of the company. A step that cigarettes will be stamped with a colorless ink. This ink will cover the negative area of sketch so we actually cover the air holes and smoke won't pass through them, smoke will be led into sketch area. That will make the sketch clearer with each puff. The machine that does the stamping has several heads, each head has a different sketch. These sketches will be stamped randomly and put in cigarette pockets so smokers will see a different sketch each time they light up a cigarette.
Yes, this design is influenced by horrifying statistics about the number of smokers in the world and how many lives that this habit takes every day.
The difficult part of creating this design was to think of the best way to remind smokers what they are doing to themselves . Our intention was to tell our massage in a way that the smokers would not be able to condone the fact we were trying to tell .So we decided to work on cigarette filters , the next step was to show the smokers what they were doing with their body with each puff . With this idea we will be able to remind smokers what they are doing while they are doing it.
It was really important for us to evaluate our design as designers and see how it performs itself internationally and professionally.
We tried to make this design easy to produce and also not expensive in order to be mass produced. We also learnt a lot about the smoke affects and harms.