The Challenges

People with intellectual disabilities are among the most vulnerable groups in Croatia. They are broadly discriminated against and denied any legal agency. They are neither given opportunities to vote nor to marry, nor for any type of employment or life outside the institution. ASA is a movement of individuals who speak up and fight together against these and all injustices that occur due to their disabilities.

ASA’s Mission Statement speaks to the fact that since the labor market is inaccessible to people with intellectual disabilities, they must often depend on social welfare. There are very few community-based service providers for the intellectually disabled in Croatia. Instead, the government places them in large residential institutions. ASA is in opposition to this policy. The institutions do not afford human dignity. Dormitories for dozens of people, rigid rules, and the lack of privacy and personal agency are just a few of the negative characteristics of institutional life.

The Fellow’s assignment was to create a recognizable visual identity for ASA to increase the efficacy of its advocacy campaigns for the rights of all Croatians with intellectual disabilities.

The Solutions

After an intensive week-long introduction to the organization Cotton devised an overall strategy for creating a new, stronger graphic look for ASA. The deliverables included branding, print collateral in two languages, and a template for an e-newsletter. As she got to know some of the self-advocates and their stories, Cotton discovered an organization rich in narrative. Going forward, she recommended that these stories inform all aspects of the organization’s brand identity. Cotton’s first task was the creation of a logo. She presented key staff with sketches to be refined into four main concepts that would be shown to the entire organization at the weekly meeting. The self-advocates chose a logo design punctuated with an exclamation point which jump-started a conversation on the broader branding process. They discussed Cotton’s suggestions about including stories in their branding and agreed that new assets should embody both their common struggle for equal rights and at the same time the many individual tales to be told.

Cotton designed letterhead and envelope templates in Croatian and English to reflect the new brand identity. The next task was less straightforward, as Cotton felt strongly that a new poster and brochure for the organization required illustration representing individual self-advocates — providing faces for the stories. Using watercolor renderings of individuals and strong black typography, the print pieces capture both the vulnerability of the self-advocates and their strong desire for and belief in the possibility of societal change.