It Matters
Cochrane and Area Victim Services (CAVS ) supports people who have been victimized by a number of crimes, including domestic violence.
They hired me to create a booklet for teenagers to help prevent relationship and sexual abuse. They needed a booklet that spoke to the teens' sensibilities without condescending to them. Teenagers, exploring relationships was the main target, although teachers was a secondary target.
I was given the content, although I cut and edited heavily to fit the format.
I began sketching out a couple of the illustrations for style, trying animals, realistic people, and stylized people. We landed on the stylized people because if we went too realistic, we risked triggering with the content (or being too trite by not being triggering). Going the non-human route, we risked being too cutesy.
The whole booklet was reminiscent of a graphic novel to appeal to the audience, from the bright colours and stylized illustrations, to the personality of the characters and callout texts. I chose a header typeface that looked hand-lettered to lend to the graphic-novel look, but also a body typeface that was easily readable and clear.
For illustrations, I was able to recommend visual content that I thought both matched the content, and also suggested diversity in gender, race, and body-shape. This was important to me and the client to begin to turn around the stereotype of domestic violence. I also tried to imbue the illustrations with personality so that the audience could connect with them more easily. However, for those pages where the content was very serious, I reduced the visual elements to mostly text to underscore its importance.
The colours I chose were many, vibrant, and distinct, bringing to life that anyone can be a victim of relationship violence. Red and green though, were used to represent healthy/unhealthy or do/don't dichotomies. However, as red-green colour-blindness is possible, it wasn't the only indication of what was good or bad.
CAVS was thrilled with the booklet, and it hit with the audience, and despite the pandemic, they are close to needing a reprint.
"Wow Jessalyn, I LOVE it!!!!! I am so excited!!!! 🙌🏻🙌🏻 I just wanted to thank you so much for your wonderful work on the youth booklet. You are amazing and very talented. I absolutely love the design you used. I look forward to working with you again in the future."
— Client
