Brakes on Pollution
Overview
“Let’s put the brakes on pollution” was a standalone project for one of our existing clients, Rimrose Valley Friends. The Liverpool-based park charity secured funding from Community Foundation for Merseyside’s Breath Better Air fund which, as its name suggests, was looking to fund projects raising awareness of air pollution and encouraging people to take whatever steps they can to improve it.
Brief and objectives
The charity’s grant application emphasised its strong connection to communities in South Sefton and the potential it had to reach both existing and new audiences with messages about clean air.
They had stipulated that they wanted to run a poster and flyer campaign and produce an information film which could be shared online via its social media channels.
They also wanted this campaign to have its own identity, separate to the charity’s existing work, referencing the funders.
Strategy
Rimrose Valley Friends is a small but established charity with a reputation for delivering events and activities promoting physical and mental health as well as making the most of the park and the great outdoors. It also runs a campaign to protect the park from a road development, and therefore had existing knowledge around transport, which is a known and major source of pollution in the area.
We felt it was important that this project tapped into these themes and was an extension of the charity’s own aims and objectives. They are already a trusted voice on this subject matter, so we wanted to build on that.
At the same time, we were conscious not to ‘preach’ or stigmatise people for their own travel choices. Equally, although air pollution can have dire consequences for people’s health, we didn’t want to scare people with the messaging.
The copy of all comms was therefore framed positively; clearly explaining the sources of pollution (using sourced data) and the practical steps individuals could take to address this.
Design
The 'Let's put the brakes on pollution' colour palette needed to reflect the notion of clean air. Blues and greens are a natural choice when talking about environmental and health issues. We chose warmer blues and greens to keep the positive tone of the campaign, adding in a bright orange as an accent colour to help strengthen our messaging. These colours helped our posts stand out in the digital world and as roadside signage in the 'real world'.
The style of illustration utilises international symbols for transport. Recognisable icons for walking, cycling and public transport sit on a brightly coloured globe that has an overall happy feel to it - underpinning the clean air messages. A clean typeface is vital when creating posters/signage that needs to be understood at a glance, from the position of being in a car or on public transport.
Content
As transport is seen as the biggest polluter in South Sefton, the key messages centred around people considering their own travel behaviour and, ideally, ditching the car for journeys that can be made by public transport, or active travel (walking, cycling, scooting).
For the video element, the charity was keen to work with local schools which was great for us, as having children convey serious messages is a tried and trusted approach. The piece was framed as ‘BBA News’ (Breathe Better Air) and children from several local schools were cast as roving reporters. The accompanying script was written in a reportage style. We’ve included the end result on this page.
All in all, this was an incredibly satisfying project to work on and strengthened our relationship with the client, who had positive feedback from their funder.
