Designing to stop shoplifting
Retail businesses, especially shops, are currently reporting that customer theft is one of their most important concerns.
The RSA's Design Directions awards scheme encourages designers in training to apply their skills to difficult social issues and this year's competition asked them to consider how they could design out shoplifting.
Browse through all of the design ideas that were submitted to the Design Directions Design Out Shoplifting brief in this illustrated PDF
The winning entries include an advertising campaign aimed at discouraging teenage girls from shoplifting and a system for busy shops, like Tesco and Sainsbury's, that will show quickly whether or not goods have been paid for.
Jy Yeon Suh from Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design won a £4,500 internship with the NCR Corporation for her idea for proving whether products have been paid for. By invisibly coating a product's barcode with photochromatic ink that will change colour when exposed to a 365nm UV light, the product can be validated at the checkout scanner.
As well as conducting observational research in shops and supermarkets, Jy Yeon spoke to security guards at Boots, who considered that it would reduce the time it took to search for stolen goods, and to a chemist about photochromatic inks. The judging panel thought that solution demonstrated 'outside the box' thinking and noted Jy Yeon's incredible level of detail, conducting a great deal of technical evaluation.
Rachel Muli from the University of East London won a £2,500 Design Out Crime award from the Home Office's Design & Technology Alliance Against Crime for her Ugly Faces advertising campaign designed to deter teenagers from stealing cosmetics.
Rachel identified that cosmetics are an easy shoplifting target because it is easy to conceal them in a sleeve or pocket, most items are too small to carry a security tag, and they are goods which are displayed in large quantities, making it difficult for store staff to determine whether an item is missing. She spoke to girls who had stolen such items to establish what motivated them and found that peer pressure and boredom, stealing items to give as gifts or swap, or to raise self esteem or to get a buzz were all contributing factors.
The campaign she created is designed to impact on the girls' psychology and show that stealing is ugly and socially unacceptable. Shock tactics show images of girls disfigured in some way by the cosmetics they have stolen. The judging panel thought Rachel's design approach was bold, that it could work effectively with guidance, and could be expanded to other areas.
Find out more about the Design Directions winners 2010