Mutual Aid Collateral and Promotional Materials
2022, Adobe Photoshop, various sizes
A series of stickers, web images and Twitter banners for a local nonprofit mutual aid organization.
In an era where truly altruistic, not-for-profit mutual aid groups helping the most at-risk members of society are at risk themselves of being shut down or intimidated into disbanding, these groups need all the help they can get.
I answered the call for one of these local mutual aid groups to produce a series of web images and stickers for promotion and fundraising.
The initial idea brought forth by the folks running the org was "someone handing a bag of goods to another person, with a red star somewhere in the image," which later evolved into "someone handing a bag to another person, with some tents in the background."
With those ideas in mind, I set off on a series of ideas for them. I tried to harken back to old woodcut print images with scratchy textures and physically set type that didn't entirely line up. Something that looked a bit more DIY and scrappy.
I tried incorporating different ideas in addition to the tents, such as the city skyline, and rays of sunlight. All of these early images would be banked for square format and 2.75" x 5.25" horizontal sticker ideas in the future.
I was also asked to come up with vertically-oriented stickers, which could be more easily read if placed on narrow surfaces such as streetlights, door frames and telephone poles.
This particular vertical idea went through a few iterations before finding its balance. You can see how I kept pulling the elements further and further up, and swapping out the skyline til everything became a bit more centered. The final image was resized a bit to fit the sticker format.
Finally, the first round of stickers were ready for print. Here they are in the wild as well.
I also produced a series of 1500px x 500px banner images for their Twitter as well. The very horizontal idea of the person handing a bag to another person was easily translatable to Twitter.
In Autumn of 2022, I was asked by the org to design a hoodie for the unhoused community whom they primarily serve. The hoodie would be passed out freely to those folks to help in the coming colder months.
I would be creating an illustration of a local landmark, while another artist would provide a grafitti-style tag for the community, and I would pull the two elements together in the design.
I went thru several compositions and colorways before the final design was decided upon, and was tweaked a bit further before going to print.
The hoodie was sent to print and distributed in mid-October.
