Key4Life: 7/10
D&AD: Anti-Knife Campaign
During my 2nd year of University, out lecturers opened us up to D&AD's new blood awards. From a selection of briefs, I chose Key4Life's anti-knife campaign, to inspire young people to drop the knife and change their life, via the power of typography.
The goal was to create a typographically lead campaign, inspiring young offenders or potential offenders of knife crime to seek out help from Key4Life, where they are 4 times more likely to get employed, to make a change in their lives. During my research phase, I found a very strong actual piece of information.
7/10 Offenders, are more likely to get stabbed by their own knife
This fact was the driving force for my campaign. Of course the victim needs to be accounted for, but people who are offenders of knife crime, would carry them because they're scared for their life, need protection or appear intimidating due to their environment and constantly bullying. So a lack of skill/confidence could end up getting themselves stabbed by their own blade.
So if these offenders and potential offenders are not just worried about going to jail and taking a life, their own life could be taken from the blade they attempted to use. This isn't just for the victim/potential victim's sake, but for their own too.
The outcomes needed to be a non-traditional touchpoint, an graphical static and a piece of media that could go onto Instagram.
Then, all the assets would combine together into a single 2 minute video to present to D&AD.
Development Ideas
After I conducted my research, I worked on some idea generation. 100 ideas allowed me to push out any unneeded concepts so I can strike gold going down. Crazy 8s helped me to take 8 of those ideas I liked, cut them down to 3, and generate a mind map from them.
Typeface: Seven Out of Ten
This typeface was created with the intent of empowering the campaign's typography. Seven out of Ten is in reference to the main title of this project, and the likelihood you are facing of getting yourself fatally wounded if you keep committing to knife crime.
The font comes in 7 different typefaces. Regular, Semi-Bold and Bold, as well as their italics, have slices in the upper cases of their letters. This upper case cutting shows the small but dangerous impact a cut can leave, where you don't notice it at first, but when you do, you start to worry. The last typeface for this font, called '4 Times Likely" is a more positive aspect, to reference how Key4Life can make you 4 times more employable, hence why the typography's upper cases look more playable, with some looking like houses, burgers and music disks, to represent what jobs Key4Life can offer.
Non Traditional Touch Point: Knifeless Handles
Knifeless handles were created to give offenders what they wanted, but will be surprised when they found out that there's no blade, but instead the Key4Life Logo engraved onto it. The other side of the knife has engravings that explain why you're carrying it; you have "no choice", you want to protect yourself or make appear threatening, when in fact Key4Life can help you better than the blade.
The back has contact details that lead you straight to a phone number that you can call, or a website link to type out. And you don't have to always give back this knifeless handle, you could always keep as a momentum of your experience at Key4Life, or give it to someone in need of the same help you received.
Original Drafts Process
The initial idea at first was to sand down and reduce the sharpness of a knife, cut it up into multiple little pieces, then etch in the details, to signify never going back to the blade. But I ended up switching the idea to a handle, where it's more visible, has more room to fit the lettering and typography, and it won't get lost as easily. And all I did was take a photo of ma kitchen knife and used to FX tool in Photoshop to make a fake engraving using my custom font.
Graphic Static: Billboards
Billboard are gigantic. They're hard to miss and 1 glance says enough. So not matter if you're walking driving, it's night or day, you can always read a huge board of easy and insightful information.
The boards use analytics from as the main point, using numbers to further enhance what they're trying to state. Ex-Offenders are 18 times more likely to take their own life, their chance at a job is cut in half, and 64% reoffend after prison. The Key4Life logo signifies and shows who can change those odds.
Original Drafts Process
The idea still utilised typography but they were a little too illustrative, and needed to focus a lot more on the analytical data, with some simplicity. I wanted to cut it down to 3 billboards, because with 3 knifeless handles, 3 billboards and 1 small video, that amounts to 7 (leading to the reference of 7/10). I kept 2 billboards the same with some tweaks, then used a new piece of factual information.
Instagram Media: 7 Second Animation
Th final asset to round up to the number 7, is a rotoscoping animation about someone picking up a knife, but it has the fact that 7/10 people get stabbed by their own knife, and tells you Key4Life can help.
This video is quick and easy to video. People may not have the attention span or time to watch something long on something like Tik Tok or Instagram, so this little animation says enough in a second second span.
Original Crafts Process
The process had me taking videos of myself holding the knife, picking it up and twisting, importing the videos into some software, cutting them down and sticking them together, and putting them into Photoshop. I would create a video layer, trace over each frame (after I set the FPS to 10) with a rough brush, and add a dark background.
Submission Video
1 final submission to combine every asset together, into a 2 minute scripted piece for D&AD look over.
The video I submitted used the same chalkboard rotoscoping style I used for the Instagram video, for a educational, back to basics theme. I made sure to highlight the important facts and figures in green, and allow for enough space to read through the information. There was no music added, as the theme and tone should not be skewed with or distorted to fit a narrative, but instead it should plainly present the information as it is.
The assets start off with the typeface, the billboards it's used on, the handles that follow afterwards and the 7 second animation. At the end, giving specifications on each asset's dimensions.
The video was voiced by Ziam Salem, who did an amazing job reading off the information, with a voice with suited the theme.
