Headway - The Brain Injury Association

About the Client Headway, the Brain Injury Association is a charitable organisation offering support and information to those directly and indirectly affected by brain injury. The central office is based in Nottingham and is where the charity co-ordinates much of it communication through media, publications and advertising campaigns. Headway's regional groups and branches provide support, information and guidance to those who are in need of daily respite care for brain injury survivors, their families and carers; located nationwide each group or branch develops its' own individual activities with local people in response to local needs. Our Brief Headway's communications department had created concepts for a highly visual poster to hightlight the charity's Brain Injury Awareness Week in March 2006. The poster will be displayed in high visibilty areas such as Accident and Emergency departments, Doctor's surgeries, church halls, Headway House Centres and Headway charity shops. The concepts whilst strong, did not make the most of the opportunity the awareness will provide and so we were asked to produce alternative concepts; firstly to give additional art direction to the campaign and also to prove our ability before a commission was given to us. Brain injury affects people differently be it physically, mentally and emotionally. With this in mind, careful consideration had to be given to the sensitive subject matter; paying particular attention to the use of copy and the style of imagery used. The Execution We consideration a number of alternative approaches to the brief. We presented Headway with 5 concepts, each with a different tone and illustrative style. The concepts included the use of a jigsaw puzzle for symbolism as well as more artisitic graphics with a Picasso influence. The concepts were presented at a regional marketing meeting and the winning result was a very crisp vector illustrated style, using multiple cogs and silhouettes to represented the change of personality and function brain injury can have.