Posters for Earth Day, Canada

The brief was to reflect the new and refreshing direction of the competition that aimed to heighten awareness of ecological and global issues and engage young people in what is a vital development within education and research. I aimed to produce visuals that were original, memorable, and that would appeal to the student groups without being patronising, and would also communicate the weight of the subject concerned.

Previously I have worked on a number of projects for university publications in Britain and the United States but it was a publication cover that depicted the development of memory skills that had interested the Earth Day Canada Group. This was an intense and serious image that depicted the processes of connecting image and memory.

These posters were designed to appeal to a wide range of participants, of either gender, and consequently the imagery used is somewhat androgynous and racially ambiguous. The images were mixed media, collage, photograph and contained visual elements from industry, nature, wild life, transport, energy production, medicine, technology and farming.

‘Earth Day Canada’ is a national environmental communication organisation whose aim is to improve the state of the environment by empowering the population of Canada to take positive environmental action both globally and locally. First launched in 1970 as an awareness event in the United States, Earth Day April 27th is celebrated as the birth of the environmental movement. Earth Day has two hundred million participants across the globe. They are the sponsors of an annual education scholarship program to encourage students who have shown outstanding environmental leadership. In 2006 I was asked to create two posters to publicise this scholarship opportunity. The posters appeared extensively in Canadian schools, universities, guidance council offices and other public areas.