Unitrans COVID-19 Safety Posters
The Brief
As a Marketing Design Assistant for Unitrans, the bus system in the city of Davis, I was asked to create window decals that would provide riders with guidelines for riding the buses safely during the pandemic.
There were four healthy riding tips:
1) A face covering is required while riding.
2) Wash your hands after riding.
3) Minimize talking with drivers and other customers.
4) Please leave windows open to maximize airflow.
The decal had to include the text above, along with icons that illustrate each tip.
Emojis!
My very first thought was to illustrate some people following the healthy riding tips as icons. But because of the importance of the message, I wanted to create something eye-catching so that the passengers would really notice these decals. After thinking about it for a moment, I had an idea—to create emojis that would illustrate the different healthy riding tips.
Not only did my use of emojis make the decals unique, and consequently, more attention-grabbing, but also their simplicity allowed for a greater emphasis to be placed on the actions being illustrated. The details of a human being—the shape of the face, hair, clothing, etc.—would only have detracted from the message.
The Final Product
The final product was drawn in Adobe Illustrator. For the color scheme, I picked mostly light colors and utilized a lot of blue throughout my design, since blue and other muted colors are typically associated with feelings of safety. I used a minimal number of hues to ensure that the poster looks clean, not chaotic. I then used different tints and shades of the same hues, primarily to add more dimension to my emojis.
In addition to these lighter colors, I used a bright red to incorporate the Unitrans branding. I also used this red to place a greater emphasis on certain words within the text and consequently, better convey the intended messages to the viewer.
These posters were printed and posted on the windows in all of the Unitrans buses to instruct and remind riders of COVID-19 safety precautions and guidelines.
Another Project
After creating these decals, I was asked to create an additional poster to emphasize that passengers should minimize their conversation with the driver (to be hung near the driver’s seat), in order to protect the health of Unitrans drivers.
In the poster, I used the driver’s hat to distinguish the driver emoji from the customer. The hat is in a different hue which is not utilized anywhere else in the poster; this helps to further emphasize that this emoji is the bus driver.
What I Learned
Overall, this project allowed me to truly exercise my creativity in creating something unique. I was able to experiment and turn something as "boring" as a safety poster into something eye-catching that also effectively delivers the message to the viewer. This project pushed me to find ways to illustrate different actions in a static frame in a manner that is as simple and clear as possible.