Recreational drug use is a big problem surrounding young people with over 1.3 million 16-24-year-olds having taken drugs in 2018. The brief was to come up with marketing and wayfinding solutions for an exhibition that attempts to tackle this issue.

This exhibition focuses on the emotional impact drugs have on grieving families, primarily raising awareness on how “just once” is enough to end a life. We hope to better engage with young people by framing the exhibition around the impact these devastations have on families and communities rather than on the drug user themselves.

The logo needed to feel distorted to represent the effects of drugs. Moreover, it needed to feel imperfect to not sensationalize the effects of drugs. Overall, the bold, disfigured wordmark captures the surrealness that the name suggests… “just once” is enough for things to take a turn for the worst.

The main challenge that arose was finding a way to engage with the target audience of 16-24-year-olds. The mission was to reach them emotionally, in a way that is unpatronizing with the expectation that this will make young people think twice about taking drugs in the future. Scare tactics are often used to push young people away from drugs but often have the opposite reaction. I decided to communicate the impact these tragedies have on families of the victims to reach young people on a more personal and emotional level. I did this through the use of illustrations and quotes from families of real victims. The decision was also made to host the exhibition at Cardiff Metropolitan University as a way of reaching as many young people as possible.

The wayfinding was a very important part of the exhibition branding not just as a means of navigating the exhibition but as a way of subtly introducing the subject to young people. Our audience of young people who have taken drugs before or are thinking of doing so are likely to ignore the exhibition’s existence as they may not like what we have to say. The wayfinding attempts to grab the attention of these people without giving much information away. Curiosity is enough to fuel the visitor into following the signage. Placing the brand’s yellow sparingly on as little as one object or thing still succeeds in grabbing the visitors' attention, reiterating the constant reminder that “just once” is enough to impact someone’s life.

Another goal for the wayfinding was to keep reminding young people about the core messages that the exhibition was attempting to communicate. Placing quotes on the stairs of some of the busier parts of the university helps the message sink in, even if they didn’t attend the exhibition. By doing this, we hope young people will recall seeing it when the time comes and potentially save lives.