Research driven design in response to an RFP from Google Fonts and HMCT looking for a typographically led campaign using their typeface Noto as a call to awareness for a topic endangering human rights – emphasizing the power of typography as a “universal voice of peace, dignity, and equality”. The Noto typeface is available in over 1,000 languages and writing systems, designed to be truly universal. I chose the topic of climate change, an imminent threat to all of us globally, focusing on natural disasters and the human displacement that follows.
The type and background texture in these posters are real objects physically manipulated and scanned in to represent the destruction and instability that comes in the aftermath of a natural disaster. Images faded in the background come from each respective location that is acknowledged.
Research from Monotype shows that when it comes to works of activism, art-based solutions are widely considered more authentic than strictly design-based solutions. With this in mind, a public art structure is part of the campaign. This is made as a memorial to all of the homes lost and the people displaced after a climate based disaster. Conceptually, the form is in reference to disaster relief domes, the glass-like material represents fragility and something that would be broken in a disaster, and the brown color represents the cardboard temporary shelters that we are too familiar with.
Social media is the digital component of this campaign, as we see in recent years the role it plays in spreading activist messages and information.
