No One Should Be Homeless at Christmas Event Identity, Invite, Posters and Boxed Catalogue

‘No one should be homeless at Christmas’ is a collaboration between St Petroc’s Society, a charity which supports homeless single people in Cornwall, and Arts for Health Cornwall and Isles of Scilly (AFHC), a charity which promotes the role of the use of the arts in improving health and well-being. In the lead-up to Christmas 2006, St Petroc’s Society participated in the BBC’s Video Nation and was given a number of digital cameras. In discussions with AFHC, it was decided to commission professional photographer, Brian Kennedy, to record aspects of Christmas from the perspective of homeless people and to assist staff and clients with creating their own images. The resulting images now form an exhibition, launched at Truro Cathedral in Christmas 2007 and touring thereafter.

We were commissioned to create a catalogue – to accompany the exhibition and to create awareness of the subject being explored, and also an invite for the exhibition opening. Our brief was to reinforce the value of people and the preciousness of human life.

The power of the photos is in their honesty and intimacy and we were very conscious that we didn’t want to exploit that, and this moved us away from singling out an image for the cover. We started thinking about cardboard boxes as a visual metaphor for homelessness, which led to the idea of using a rough material for the cover, to communicate something about the discomfort, unpleasantness and harsh conditions of sleeping ‘out’. In contrast to this, we also wanted to highlight the preciousness of human life. Foil blocking ‘homeless’ (and not Christmas) in gold onto the rough cover seemed like the appropriate way to introduce this aspect.

ITC New Baskerville was selected for its quiet elegance. Used in one weight and size throughout, with the images kept separate, the text speaks softly, creating a sense of intimacy between the words and the reader.

The link to Christmas is continued with the cardboard sleeve, in which the catalogue is packaged, so that the catalogue is ‘unwrapped’. The mix of ‘rough and smooth’ is repeated with the use of the cardboard and gold label.

Photography

Brian Kennedy

Font

ITC New Baskerville Roman

Printing

APB Colour Print Limited Bristol

Finisher

C&J Adams, Bristol

Binder

WH Ware, Clevedon

Paper

Cover on 100% recycled, Paperback Greyboard. Inner pages on Think 4 Solid and Regency Satin, Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified paper, from Howard Smith

Related projects

Arts for Health Cornwall identity

Arts for Health Cornwall printed material