Our Story
At Press Pause, our mission is to distribute easily accessible resources to help guide individuals through their mental health journey.
Taylor Jackson
Creator of Press Pause
The Press Pause brand and products were designed by Conestoga College Bachelor of Design Student, Taylor Jackson. She worked with professionals in the field to deliver unique tools, curated and redesigned specifically for post-secondary students like herself. Taylor noticed a need for a product like this during her time as a post-secondary student. She found that she and her peers were dealing with overwhelming stress and anxiety, so she took the opportunity of a free project in her second year to create something that would take them offline to focus on their mental health.
She has received feedback from students and staff at various post-secondary institutions across Canada. This feedback, combined with rounds of user testing has been used to continuously update current products and implement new products, ensuring the best user experience possible.
How it Began.
Press Pause began as a free design project in Studio IV. Students were to create a project to fit into an RGD Student Awards category. Press Pause was designed for the Print Material / Social Good categories.
The idea was born from being personally stressed out and being surrounded by my equally stressed and anxious peers. I deal with anxiety on a daily basis and I wanted to design something that took users offline to focus fully on their mental health.
The Opportunity.
Due to COVID-19 and exploration of alternative co-op opportunities, I applied for the Spring 2020 cohort of Conestoga Colleges Venture Lab which is a business accelerator program.
With the help of their business coaches, I was able to get the kit reviewed and validated by subject matter experts. After months of work and various revisions, the kit was ready to go to market.
In Action.
In my second semester of the Venture Lab co-op, I secured my first sale with Conestoga College to deliver 9350 kits to ALL first-year students in the winter semester.
In the following four months, I have been fulfilling orders for four more colleges, e-commerce customers, and have started working with organizations like Sun Life Financial to get accessible mental health resources to more people.
Research & Testing
A large amount of research and validation went into this project right from the start. Taking our users offline and helping them to focus fully on their mental health is one of the most important aspects of Press Pause.
Young people especially get wrapped up in technology and it leaves us feeling like we should be available 24/7 but that is simply not the case. While there are many benefits to technology, it is important to note that digital devices and social media in particular can leave us feeling more stressed, isolated, and anxious than before.
This low-tech approach places importance on thinking for yourself, finding a place of calm, and the act of writing actually forces the users to process information in a more detailed way which then successfully loads that information into our memory, which translates to more progress overall.
Since Press Pause has gone to market, it has entered a constant realm of feedback from our partners and customers on our eCommerce website. All information we are given is confidential and anonymous unless our customers state otherwise. We use this information to constantly update our content, keeping it as relevant and user-friendly as possible.
In February 2021, Press Pause was featured on the front page of The Record.
Read More About Press Pause
“Design student launches mental wellness kit.”
Taylor Jackson, a fourth-year Bachelor of Design student, has launched Press Pause - a start-up that focuses on youth mental health and wellness. As a student who faces everyday feelings of stress and anxiety, Jackson said she is uniquely positioned as the product’s spokesperson as well as its target audience.
- Conestoga College News
“Supporting student mental health.”
This year, the college broadened its student mental health outreach through an investment in more than 9,000 Press Pause kits for all Ontario-based first-year fall 2020 students.
Designed and launched by fourth-year Bachelor of Design student Taylor Jackson, Press Pause is a mental wellness self-help kit that takes individuals away from the noise of online spaces to focus on their well-being. The evidence-based mental health tool kit guides students through journaling, reflection, future-planning, and positive-thinking exercises.
- Conestoga College News
Find out more about starting a partnership with Press Pause.
If you’re looking to find out more about Press Pause for your own usage or for an organization, book an appointment and we can set up a no-obligation conversation about possible opportunities.