COPYWRITING | ART DIRECTION | TYPOGRAPHY
PHOTOSHOP | ILLUSTRATOR
EVERY TWO HOURS
Suicide remains the biggest cause of death for men under 50; men account for around 75% of deaths by suicide each year. This project aimed to highlight this issue and generate conversation, to remind men that they don't have to suffer in silence.
Project Duration: 1 Month
Here is a selection of rough sketches from the initial ideas phase of the project, every project I work on starts out with a research and ideas phase which helps me identify and focus on the strongest concept.
Some of the ideas in this initial phase included visual themes of time to symbolise the pressing nature of the issue, as well as grounding it in an easily understandble representation of the concerning statistics.
Throughout my research and ideation I came across the famous Esquire magazine cover featuring Muhummad Ali which drew me towards the concept of men being "pierced" by dominant discourses in society which are harmful to men, such as toxic masculinity. I used different symbols to draw these connections.
The final direction of the project continued along these same themes, however, I decided to utilise typography to represent more literally the things that impact men's mental health, to allow for wider audience understanding and readability of the message.
The imagery of male dancers was chosen to contrast the joyous expression of their faces and bodies with the words piercing them, this is also symbolic of the societal expectations for men to not express their struggles.
The decision to utilise imagery of different men for various designs was to highlight how this issue affects all men regardless of ethnicity, body type, or status.
