Creatives on lockdown

It’s week 6 of our lockdown and as the pandemic continues to disrupt the routine of every household around the world, we take a look at how the creative industry is coping and adapting to make the most out of the situation that we are all living in.

Many creatives are using their animation, illustration and design skills to share information in unique ways that will help capture attention and inform about key public health messages during this time. One artist, Jure Tovrljan has redesigned many iconic brands to this effect, disrupting their instantly recognisable logos into relatable versions in line with social distancing and stay at home messaging.

The United Nations also put out an open creative brief, calling for creatives to help translate critical public health messages, into work that will engage and inform people across different cultures, languages, communities and platforms. Our creative team put their heads together and submitted an idea focused on educating children about social distancing – meet Pete the Pigeon! More details of the campaign can be found here.

What about those with creativity to give but a lack of avenues to pursue at the moment?

A group of creatives that have been furloughed have come together to offer their knowledge and creative skills for free to small businesses and people in need of help during these challenging times. With the knowledge that this crisis could result in the closure of 1 in 5 small and medium sized businesses, they want to do something about it and launched Not Fur’ Long. A great use of resources and help to those who really need it, and what a way to keep the creative juices flowing!

With Earth Day taking place last week and real-life protests being on hold, designers from around the world have contributed to Mate Act Now – a global initiative that’s using digital posters to raise awareness of climate change. The posters were shared via social media, in a bid to remind people that despite the ongoing Covid-19 crisis, the climate is still very much at risk.

We’ve been working closely with our existing clients too, to help them communicate to their customers in an engaging way that means key messaging doesn’t get lost in the sea of Covid-19 information.

We proposed a chatbot to Toyota to give personalised responses to customers and access to the most important information for their needs. If that sounds like something that you could help you at this time, get in touch.

Many in the industry, including our own creative team are also using this time to reflect on their skills and using the time that they would have spent commuting, learning new skills and developing old ones too. Pete, my fellow Senior Designer has been using his spare time to flex his animation skills in the form of character animation – check out his character below!

As we look ahead, we’ll be keeping our eyes peeled for more examples of the collective power of the creative industry in rallying behind causes as well as individual examples that inspire us.