Runxuan Bai

The phrase “The Curse of Lovely” was first coined by psychologist Jacqui Marson to describe a growing trend – many people’s lives and relationships are marred by a misplaced belief that they must always be liked by those around them, and they confine themselves to behaviours they believe are preferred by others. In psychology, people who have the ‘curse of lovely’ are called people pleasers. Childhood experiences influence the formation of a people pleaser. As family therapist Darlene Lancer says, the habit of pleasing others starts in your childhood. Suppose you feel like you always have to accommodate others. In that case, it probably stems from your parent’s parenting style, where they withheld love from you, imposed impossible expectations on you and unfairly disciplined you. The Curse of Lovely imagines a charitable organisation, BUILD. The slogan is “Building Your Child’s Mental Health”. This year, Build Organization holds a mental health campaign, aiming to communicate with young parents to make them aware of the problems faced by people-pleasers, and focus on the way they are parenting and educating their children. Finally, the campaign will also show young parents how to build their children’s mental health so that they don’t become people pleasers.

The static design includes type design, information poster design and illustration design. Firstly, I designed the typeface using the block element as a metaphor for building children’s mental health. In addition, the information design demonstrates the problems faced by people pleasers and the seriousness of the social problem of a people pleaser. Finally, the illustration brochure design shows ways to prevent children to become people pleasers.