brought honest, visual clarity to a difficult conversation about rising youth suicide in the Netherlands
Every month in the Netherlands, we lose 26 young people to suicide. It's a number we rarely talk about. When the creative team presented the arresting idea of bringing them together in a single class photo, 26 young people who never shared a classroom, the design intention for the campaign identity and experience was clear: it had to be unadorned, yet personal and intimate.
Good design knows its place
The role of design is to frame the hero visual with the utmost care, never to compete with it. With this in mind, we kept the typography, colour palette and layout deliberately quiet so the class photo could hold the viewer’s attention. This measured approach leaves room for people to pause and reflect.
Typography
With the class photo as the hero asset, we wanted a typeface that felt warm, soft and grounded. When we finally arrived at a serif, we wanted it to have a subtle trace of the pen in its strokes became the visual voice for a topic that is urgent, yet still too often left unspoken.
Responsibilities
Shaping the visual language, visual and character design, design for the digital impressions, creation of the tool and final guidelines.
Credits
Dominique Matthijs, Dieuwertje Matheeuwsen, Mike Kleijnen, Bastiaan Weers, Tamara Saelman. Special thanks to Joost Rutten for bringing the bee to life.
Available from 2027