Client: Soul Action
Role: Concept, copy writing, graphic design, print management, budget, staying calm

The Soul Action ‘Live Free’ campaign was all around the issue of human trafficking. 27 million people each year are sold, several million of which are children. The main aim of the campaign was to raise awareness of the issue amongst young people and to also raise a lot of money to support work that prevents modern day slavery.

Trafficking is a massive issue, and a very emotive one. We discussed various angles in the planning stage and we decided to focus on a positive message.

We didn’t want pictures of trafficked children with their eyes blacked and didn’t want to focus on the awful experiences of slaves. This seemed done to death, but also extremely dark.

Instead we wanted to be hopeful. Yes, the issue is dark, but the stories of our partner projects acting to rescue people from slavery and poverty are not.

So, the focus became a statement (Use your freedom so that others can live free), and that in turn led to a really strong, playful and positive typographic look. We still used stories, but they all had a resolution and a hopeful ending, and any images used were in the same vein.

The campaign has a variety of different angles and ways to get involved, so we produced a few different things, including a poster exploring the general idea, a guide for youth leaders outlining all the ways they can get involved, a ‘make it yourself’ money box (that goes alongside one of the key fundraising ideas) and some beer mats for promotion at different events.

We also produced some banners for the Soul Survivor events and (this is the best bit) we worked alongside a project in Cambodia where people rescued from slavery made us 6000 freedom bands. Making these bands employed around 20 people for a few months, giving them a decent wage and helping them develop basic sewing and textiles skills.

After the events the bands had all sold out…