Our Students' Posters Help to Tackle Drugs and Change Lives
Following widespread recognition for their success in creating arresting visuals for the recent Bradford Council led Alcohol Awareness campaign, a group of our BA (Hons) Graphic Design Illustration & Digital Media students were keen to lend their considerable skills to reach young people in another important cause.
Bradford Council is again co-ordinating a multi-agency approach to address another crucial issue damaging individuals and communities with its campaign, Tackling Drugs, Changing Lives, which runs from 15th to 19th November. Once more the students’ posters will decorate the windows of the Young People’s Information Shop in Bradford and Keighley Connections to draw attention to the awareness raising drop-in sessions held throughout the week at these venues by the Council’s Young People’s Drug and Alcohol Service. They will also help spread the message to everyone who passes by about the harm caused by drugs, to young people think about the consequences.
Victoria Foggin, Lauren Ford, Joey Haran, Mohammed Haroon, Tom Hinchliffe, Philip Kiszel, Matt Lamont, Rachel Morris and Lucy Wileman have produced some extraordinarily powerful work depicting the personal, social and medical impact of drug taking in a way that speaks directly to young people. Working at high speed and having to be very resourceful, they have posed friends and family in photographs and used props including blood from supermarket meat, icing sugar and flour, while superb illustrative work plays to young people’s love of technical detail and humour to highlight organ damage and mental health problems.
Lauren explained this project had presented some technical challenges beyond their work for alcohol awareness. She said "We had to be aware of the effects, appearance and street names of drugs to present our ideas credibly. Sometimes a drug might be available in other forms but most commonly be on the streets as a powder and we had to check with Jayce that we had every detail right so that young people would relate to it."
Senior Drugs & Alcohol Worker, Jayce Lambert, has been amazed at their ideas, invention and polished presentation. He told the group, “Whatever brief I set, you surpass my expectations by miles. You are highlighting big issues that are a reality for some young people when they become under the influence of drugs. There is honesty to this work which users will recognise. It will help people understand their use and deal with it rather than accelerate it. You are showing realistic consequences and saying ‘make sure it doesn’t happen to you’. These posters empower people to take control, saying ‘don’t go there.’ Whoever employs you all in the future will be really lucky.”
Proud Course Tutor, Paul Holmes, said “Yet again the students have created some excellent outcomes for Bradford City Council’s Awareness campaign. The client is very pleased with the quality of the work and this will be again displayed in the centre of Bradford and Keighley. This has been another quick turnround for the students and I am proud of their efforts, while working on other live projects, including an intensive project set by Hallmark Cards.”
You can all their amazing posters here