Monotype Brief
The aim of this brief was to help the audience believe in a cause of our choice using the power of typography. In a relevant way it had to motivate and inspire people, essentially it had to make an impact.
The Solution
We decided to raise awareness for the alcohol abuse charity sector. Our idea centred on using a ‘palindrome’, which is a word or phrase that reads the same backwards as forwards. We chose to use the palindrome ‘Murder for a jar of red rum’ as the word murder connotes‘abuse’ and red rum symbolises ‘alcohol’. Stylistically we chose to use black, white and grey as our primary colours to reflect overall feelings of depression, death, aloneness, despair, and sadness – all words that are often associated with alcoholics. Each letter had one element placed in red to signify blood. We needed a supporting sentence so that the audience would understand why we chose to use a palindrome. Therefore, we came up with ‘no matter which way they look at it the outcome is always the same’ suggesting that it doesn’t matter what you say to an alcoholic they will choose to drink anyway. In order to get our message across we had to think of a clever way to produce the work so that people would understand that the sentence could be read both ways. As a result, we decided to create a concertina booklet as the main focus point of our campaign. This would be a direct mail piece of advertising, if this charity isn’t relevant to the reader the likelihood is they may know someone who could use help and would pass the booklet onto them. This piece of print media
would also be placed in a doctors waiting room.
Other Elements
The concertina booklet is the main focus of the campaign, however we decided it would be beneficial to spread the campaign across other platforms. Firstly, as a digital element the concertina booklet would be positioned down the right hand side of a website. The booklet would open in a certain way depending on whether you are scrolling up or down. If you start at the top of the webpage and scroll down the booklet would open top to bottom. If you are at the bottom of the webpage and are scrolling back to the top, the booklet would open bottom to top. The other element would require placing the phrase down one side
of a high-rise building. If you were on the pavement outside it would be clear enough
that the phrase can be read both ways. Also, if you were an office worker on the top
floor you would be able to read it bottom to top. If it were placed in a high-rise,
built-up area different people would be able to see it from different
view-points depending on the level they are at
within their building.
