Graphic design case study - Environment Agency Billboard campaign
We are proud to have worked with the Environment Agency on this project; not only is it an environmental issue that is close to our hearts, but it is a Bristol issue that we have helped to tackle. The whole process was a pleasure; devising the concepts for the billboard advertising, the photography, the graphic design and the overall communication challenge. 
The Client
The Environment Agency is the leading public body for protecting and improving the environment in England and Wales. It’s their job to make sure that air, land and water are looked after by everyone in today’s society, so that tomorrow’s generations inherit a cleaner, healthier world.
They strive to achieve this goal in many different ways; Influencing and working with Government, industry and local authorities to make the environment a priority. Taking action against those who don’t take their environmental responsibilities seriously is another.
The Challenge
One of the issues faced by the Environment Agency is the illegal dumping of toxic and other waste, also known as fly tipping. Aside from individuals who will quite happily dump a shopping trolley in a river, there are ‘organised’ fly tippers, that is, people or illegal carriers who dump large quantities of waste in order to avoid the charges associated with disposing of it responsibly.
The Environment Agency needed an advertising campaign that would not only raise awareness of the environmental and social issues associated with fly tipping. But also make businesses and communities aware of the fines that are incurred for the illegal dumping of waste.
The advertising campaign needed to be designed to appear on billboards and bus backs in the south Bristol area for a period of 6 months during 2007.
The Solution
The designers at Deckchair quickly came up with a few concepts for the campaign. One of the ideas was to show the reality of the fly tipping situation in South Bristol. A lot of the illegal carriers dump dangerous rubbish, chemicals and white goods in the back lanes of residential areas where young children play and could easily be harmed.
Using a young model (Florence, my daughter) and a renowned fly tipping location Deckchair’s creative team produced a hard hitting image with incredible impact to fulfill the brief.
The billboard:
The bus back:
The Result
The campaign has recently been honored at the National Environment Agency Communications Awards 2007 through Clare Rogers (project manager) with an award for ‘best visual interpretation of our brand’, and was short listed from over 100 entries. We are absolutely thrilled with this great result for our client. This of course is aside from the huge success of the billboard campaign itself.
Press Coverage
We achieved good local press coverage for the campaign with articles in The Bristol Evening Post and The Western Daily Press. Also, national press coverage with articles in the Chamber Link Magazine and Design Week.
Bristol Evening Post, Clare Rogers of the Environment Agency and Florence pose in front of one of the billboards in South Bristol.
Western Daily Press use the poster for their article.
Testimonial
Clare Rogers, Campaign Manager, Environment Agency said:
“Faced with the challenge of communicating a message to a hard-to-reach audience, we needed considerable creative input and some fresh ideas, stepping right away from our traditional corporate style. Deckchair gave us a range of great concepts to test on our audience, then delivered the complete package, based on our market research.
It’s rare to find a company so responsive to what you are trying to achieve. The results are stunning and our design has won a communications award for ‘best visual interpretation of our brand’.”
Leaflets
To back up the billboard campaign, the Environment Agency asked Deckchair to produce a duty of care leaflet to be distributed throughout Bristol, Bath, North East Somerset and South Gloucestershire Council boroughs. The leaflet is designed to make people check the waste carrier’s licence of any waste removal services that they employ. Using a model we recreated the typical scene of a ‘man with a van’ collecting unwanted items from a household. The message comes across loud and clear in this neat and informative leaflet:
Promotional
Deckchair also produced a fun and eye catching fridge magnet as a promotional item to be handed out at events to help to drive the message home:
Final Report
Clare Rogers at the Environment Agency asked Deckchair to produce a 40 page final report for internal use to compile the strategies and information for the BREW (Business Resource and Efficiency Waste programme) ‘Cleaning up Bristol’ Campaign. The report has been beautifully put together in a perfect bound book printed on recycled paper.
Do you need creative design for a campaign? Give us a call 0117 9299150 or pop by and meet the team.
Toni
Amanda Vlahakis Says:
March 4th, 2008 at 11:37 pm
Oh I love this, absolutely fabulous work, well done! And how cool that your beautiful daughter has modelled in this.
Stunning photography (Florence playing amongst the waste) that really hits home, and I love the licence plate on the van
I just did a fake licence plate today coincidentally on a client project, but it was something more glam and less meaningful than this project, lol.
Becky Says:
March 12th, 2008 at 1:04 pm
Thanks for your feedback Amanda! The Environment Agency project really was a great project to work on - it was for a meaningful cause and at the same time allowed us to flex our creative muscles to provide effective solutions that the client was really happy with. It was good to work on an ongoing campaign as it allowed us to link all the entities together and really get involved. And Florence was a stunning model and so well behaved!
Your fake license project sounds interesting - what subject matter did it involve?
Becky
Amanda Vlahakis Says:
March 12th, 2008 at 10:49 pm
It for a fashion retail clients birthday party event - she wanted Barbie Kitsch theme and the license plate was changed to her year of birth.
You can see it at http://trulyace.com/blog/?p=106 - you need to scroll down to see the design larger.
Amanda
Becky Says:
March 13th, 2008 at 4:48 pm
Aha it’s good to see that - I think you’ve demonstrated the kitsch and Barbie theme really well considering the limitations you were given in terms of imagery. We have a lot of clients who are incredibly shocked when we tell them the possible prices of stock imagery. So I must say we have used Istock quite a lot over the last few months. Considering the debate going on at the moment, we should be perhaps shamed to admit that we use websites like Istock because of the possible negative effects on the photography industry. Also, if we all keep using Istock will we eventually start using the same images…?! I think perhaps we’ll write a blog on that one! I’ve moved away from the original subject slightly, but thanks, it was good to see your license plate!
Amanda Vlahakis Says:
March 13th, 2008 at 5:45 pm
Sorry to continue the ‘off topic’, but I must say that if photographers don’t want to be paid low fees, then shouldn”t charge them.
They need to not give into supplying their work at these low prices. I don’t honestly know how any of them make any sort of living doing that.
For instance there are plenty of places offering a logo design for £50 or £100, but you don’t see me caving in to the pressure to provide my services at the same price or bid super low at places like Elance for instance.
It’s not our responsibility to ‘not purchase’ at low prices, if it’s their industry and therefore it’s their responsibility to charge what they feel their photography is worth and if Istock isn’t profitable for them, they should stop uploading their images to it.
Every time I suggest to a client paying a min of £100 for an image at Getty for instance rather than using Istockphoto.com they balk at the price and stick with Istock and they don’t care if the images are being used elsewhere. Now if there was no other choice they would pay it happily.
Becky Says:
March 17th, 2008 at 5:27 pm
Hi Amanda, thanks for your comment. It’s good to carry on the discussion and hear your point of view. I agree with what you are saying… We are the same at Deckchair - we know that there are companies out there who will provide you with a ‘design-your-website-from-scratch’ program for £50, or companies, like you said, that provide logos for £50. But we always say that you get what you pay for, and our skills and work are charged accordingly - we’d never lower our prices to match that as it devalues your work and we simply couldn’t afford to design and allocate time at that price. You would end up getting a logo that is worth only £50!!
I agree it’s not our responsibility too. But I think there are more dimensions to this. For example, from experience with a photographer we work with, they are tied into contracts with the image banks - it is up to the image banks what is being charged for the images, so if as a photographer you have a year left until the end of your contract yet the image bank decides to start selling your images for 75p, there is apparently nothing you can do. Obviously the photographer can choose not to enter into a contract of this sort, but for those who are already signed up, their hands are tied.
We seem to have a mix with our clients - it seems to be entirely dependent on the job at hand and the size of the company. A lot of smaller clients happily use Istock with us, as it meets their needs. But for more bespoke jobs with bigger companies they are happy to pay more for a more unique image, or even commission a photographer - for example with the Environment Agency job there was no way we would ever find an image to fit the concept we had developed unless we commissioned it ourselves.