Aoife’s safety diary and booklet for children are ‘ready to go’

A YOUNG graduate from North Galway is hoping that a design project on farm safety that she completed for her degree could contribute to preventing death and injury in the agriculture workplace.

Aoife Smyth from Kiltevna – between Dunmore and Williamstown – completed hundreds of hand sketches that she then transformed into computer graphic designs on the theme of farm safety.

She is hoping that a sample diary with visual alerts and reminders about staying safe on the farm could be taken on board by publishers into the future.

“I suppose overall I came up with about 800 sketches on the theme of farm safety for my BA degree in Visual Communications from the University of South Wales.

“I have put some of those into a farm diary that I feel could act as a regular reminder through the year to farmers and their families about farm safety,” Aoife told the Farming Tribune.

She feels that unlike ‘fliers’ – often discarded after a week or two – the diary format would be used ‘day-in, day-out’ by farmers keeping a note of different farm activities.

Aoife has also created a booklet for children with different images, highlighting the very simple but deadly dangers that exist on the farm.

“Trying to get the message across to children about the dangers on a farm was difficult at first, but then became very clear.

“Children don’t see danger, so the booklet I created shows for example the scene of a child climbing up on bales – as quick as you turn a page, a child could fall off those bales. The images show two sides of the story that could happen,” said Aoife Smyth.

Her project helped her to graduate with an honours BA from the University of South Wales and she is already involved in some freelance design work {Solo Designs] with a number of companies.

Though not from a farm herself, Aoife lives in the heart of farming country near Dunmore and decided that farm safety was the perfect topic for he degree project.

Her design booklet on children’s safety on the farm can be viewed on:  http://issuu.com/aoifesmyth/docs/booklet_compressed_file while the farm diary link is: http://issuu.com/aoifesmyth/docs/farm_safety_diary_2016

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.