Getting knowledge into the right hands
Project type: print design
Lambda Legal, founded in 1973, was the first legal organisation in the United States dedicated to achieving full equality for lesbian and gay people. It’s now the largest national legal organisation working for the civil rights of lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, transgender people and everyone living with HIV to be fully recognised.
We worked with the Lambda Legal team to develop a set of six information cards that would educate and inform young readers of their rights. Our designs had to be visually appealing, convey complex legal information in an accessible way, and reach the right audience.
Talking to the team at Lambda Legal, our first step was to understand exactly what the project wanted to achieve. Who exactly was the target audience? What legal information did we need to convey to them? And how and where might it be used?
The project was aimed at undergraduate students at colleges and universities on the west coast of the US. To appeal to this audience, we’d have to cut through the legal jargon and present the information in an informative, accessible and eye-catching way.
Photo: legal paperwork
Working closely with the team at Lambda Legal, we designed a set of information cards that would stand out. Legal work can be complex, dense and hard to understand. But we made sure our designs felt bold and youthful, and communicated the information in a clear and easily-digested way.
Each individual card had its own unique bold style and worked as a standalone piece. As a set, the six cards together represented the colours of the LGBTQ+ pride flag.
Working with the Lambda Legal team on this project was hugely rewarding.
They got fantastic feedback from young people on the final designs, which Lambda Legal then rolled out to other colleges and universities across the United States. As a result, their advice and information is available to a much larger proportion of young LGBTQ+ people nationwide.
“Smith&Brown came to our organisation just when we needed them most! Their designs for a youth specific project we had going were exactly what we had always imagined, but did not have the creativity or know how to put together. They took our legal work, which is not usually interesting for young people and placed it into designs that not only catch the eye but are also informative in a very digestible way.”
Megan VanKuiken, Lambda Legal