It’s pretty rare when you get to jump on a project that 1. Lets you work with great people and 2. Lets you be part of the process of dreaming up something really special.

Recently, I was fortunate enough to be given one of those opportunities.

Mike Foster is a talented author, speaker, all around good guy, and one of the co-founders of a great community called People of the Second Chance. POTSC wants to change the way the world looks at forgiveness and grace by demonstrating a radical approach to the mistakes (both big and small) that we’ve all made. And rather than letting those mistakes define us, POTSC encourages adopting a new identity based on grace.

Pretty rad stuff.

Mike approached me a few months ago with a new project. He wanted a poster series that visually explored this idea of radical grace and forgiveness. I was instantly hooked, and wanted in. My job then became developing a concept that would carry this huge message in an interesting/provocative way.

Here is the process I took to get there.

Concept:

The best definition of design I’ve heard is as follows.

“Design is a vessel: the most important part is what it holds.”

The reason this is so accurate is that when you dissect design, you’re left with type, color, shapes, illustration, composition, hierarchy…all attempting to carry a message. Without the message, you’re left with the elements of design, not design itself. If this is true the focus should then shift from aesthetics to audience, because the message (intended for your audience) is delivered and supported by aesthetics, not the other way around. I always try to keep this at the front of my mind when I’m creating.

You may be asking yourself “Why is Tyler lecturing us on the definition of design?” to which I would answer “Because it’s awesome.” And beyond it just being awesome, this is the definition I used to arrive at the concept for this project, so bear with me.

So, I have a massive message (radical grace), a poster (the medium), and about 3 seconds to deliver it to my audience (the average time people look at collateral). After spending a little time mulling over ideas I remembered a few very important facts about effective design:

Fact 1. Emotion is one of the greatest tools you can try to evoke with design. Advertisers to do this all the time. Try not to get emotional when you watch that new Chipotle add with Willie Nelson singing…I dare you. The reason they do this is that when you can engage an audience’s emotions, you can make a new customer. You will 90% of the time remember adds that make you laugh, cry or cuss. Think about it…

Fact 2. Anytime you can engage the problem-solving part of the brain, your audience is much more likely to remember what it is they’re looking at. Designers have used this for ages, and it works.

The concept that began to emerge from all this was; what if the audience was faced with giving the worlds most notorious people a second chance. I thought, if you could sit with someone like Osama bin Laden, Hitler or a KKK member, would you see them worthy of a second chance. This is where concept started taking shape.

Design: 

Once the concept was approved, I moved into implementing it. Personally, I tend to lean towards simplicity in design. I am drawn to it, I enjoy making it and I believe design hero Paul Rand was right on when he said “Simplicity is not the goal. It is the by-product of a good idea and modest expectations.” I also thought the message of this project would be delivered best with as minimal elements possible.

If I can for a moment discuss minimalism. Birthed in the 1960s, minimalism made its way into several creative areas. Minimalist architecture began popping up, minimalist painters began fighting against abstract expressionism and minimalist design infiltrated the brands of American business. Helvetica is a product of the minimalist era, as is Mark Rothko, Ray and Charles Eames and tons of other bitchin stuff. Today however, minimalism plays a very different role. You can look at pretty much any design blog and see loads of minimalist posters. Its as if Mad Men gave a green light to the masses to make minimalist stuff again. Some of its good, most of its lazy and overall I’d say its overused. I’ll confess, that I often default to minimal design because its what I’m most confortable with. I genuinely think that the principle of minimalist design (less is more) worked perfect for this project. So, I used it.

In an attempt to engage both people’s emotions and problem solving abilities, I began boiling down these notorious figures to their iconic attributes. Leaving just enough information to hopefully lead you to a solution. I used the colors red and black for maximum impact. Studies show that the color red evokes certain emotions, one of which being anger, so I figured it would be rather fitting for the concept. I also wanted to pair the art with a compelling, convicting question, so that the audience would be forced to have an internal conversation about what the limits of grace were. I didn’t want to give them an answer, I wanted them to wrestle with it, talk about it at lunch, ask their piers about it and arrive at an answer that would reveal their own views on the limits of grace and reveal either a light or dark spot in their hearts.

Final:

What we ended up with was a series of posters that feature the worlds most notorious people from past and present, paired with the question “Who would you give a second chance?”

I am really happy with how the campaign turned out. I hope it raises hell for some people, and I hope by asking the question it takes us one step closer to being people defined by love and unity rather than hate and separation.

You can see more on my portfolio and on the People of the Second Chance site. A new poster is released each week, and one of them can be purchased here.