Chicago Art Director Beautifully Redesigns Homeless People's Signs
America's homeless face myriad challenges, from mental illness to problems with addiction and substance abuse to amateur typography. The last of those is something that a Chicago art director is trying to address through a project called The Urban Type Experiment.
"As an art director it's my job to grab people's attention with great design every day. So I set out to see if great design could have an impact on people in the most ignored platform," the site says.
Basically, the art director makes the acquaintance of a new homeless person every week, re-letters his or her signage, then checks back to see if the efforts helped at all. The site is pretty honest about how helpful the work has or hasn't been, which makes it seem less like a roundabout self-promotion tactic and more like genuine outreach.
More at the link: http://www.adweek.com/adfreak/art-director-beautifully-redesigns-homeless-peoples-signs-163699
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Is that professional graphic artists have a way of arranging type so the important elements stand out. Look over the signs once again: you will see certain, more important words jump out. Example: "temp," "heart," and "you."
There's also some psychology involved in the above message--"temp." People are more likely to give when they think the situation is temporary.
These highly paid people in the ad biz are paid that way for a reason.
Cher
