Stay Sane, Stay Safe
In response to the pandemic called COVID-19, my partners in crime Studio Lennarts & De Bruijn came up with a positive poster platform and asked if I wanted to write some text for it. We liked working on the project so much that I’ve fully joined the initiative from day 1. The platform, now home to almost 2000 bright and witty posters contributed by designers from over 83 countries, allows anyone to submit, download, print or share posters to “support lifesavers and to inspire home-stayers”.
It all started March 22nd with a question from our friend, who works at a hospital, to design an uplifting poster for his colleagues. One shower thought and a phone call later, we decided this project could and should be bigger. Stay Sane, Stay Safe (SSSS) saw the light of day.
That very same day a fully functioning platform was up and running as a positive response to the global corona crisis. I joined the team to help out with copy, communication, PR and a bit of social media. We managed the entire project by ourselvers. Fully pro bono. And boy we can tell you that positive energy can get you pretty damn far!
One of the goals was to help spread positive messages to get everybody through lockdown safely with a smile. Besides setting up the online platform, we’ve also succeeded in getting posters to Dutch hospitals and displaying posters in the public space.
We got covered by local and international news outlets, but we also managed to get 36 posters projected on a huge building in Amsterdam in a span of three weeks. Oh, and some posters also got showcased on a humongous 400 * 27 meter (!!!) LED façade in Amsterdam, colloquially known as the Ziggo Dome.
Obviously, we couldn’t have done this without some tremendous help of others. Eternal karma for their souls.
“Initially, the main goal was to find a partner who was willing to print posters so we can send them to hospitals. Besides that, we just wanted to make and share posters to support our lifesavers and to inspire others to stay at home and, not to forget, to keep smiling,”
–Ronald de Leeuw
Of all things we’ve had in mind, our biggest goal (at first) was sending some posters to hospitals in The Netherlands. You’ve already read some humble bragging above, so here’s some photographical proof of posters actually being up at some of the hospitals.
You can imagine that this feels as one of the biggest achievements in the entire project. We’re more than thankful for Drukkerij Tielen and Stroom Den Haag for making this possible. You guys have made us SO proud!
Pictures are taken in Amphia Breda and UMC Utrecht! Unknown nurse remains unknown, but the cheerful tatted up one is the amazing Ruben van Schaik. Thank you so much to both of you for sending us some pics in these crazy, busy times!
Pictures are taken in Amphia Breda and UMC Utrecht! Unknown nurse remains unknown, but the cheerful tatted up one is the amazing Ruben van Schaik. Thank you so much to both of you for sending us some pics in these crazy, busy times!
After setting up the SSSS platform, more room for side quests emerged. On the right side you will find some pictures of our collaboration with Exterion Media. ADCN played matchmaker in this cool collab, BTW.
Exterion owns a shit ton of digital advertising pillars and offered to loop 16 posters (in a set of 4x4) on 2500 of those pillars throughout The Netherlands.
So, when you are in town and you have to run errands like getting gas, grass or groceries, chances are that you come across a fine curation of posters from SSSS! And if you don’t have to run errands, just stay indoors, okay? Pinky promise?
After a successful first SSSS collaboration with Graphic Matters (normally a bi-annual graphic design festival in Breda, NL) covering 275 spots in Breda with SSSS posters, GM decided to go for a second campaign with two movable exhibitions containing 23 posters each.
Selected posters are designed by: Olivier van Zummeren, Pony Design Club, Stas Tuchinsky, Sebastian Pren, Perry Rowe, Steve Gavan, Studio Noord Oost, Thomas & Jurgen, Cachetejack, Humo Estudio, Filippos Fragkogiannis, Samantha Wilkinson, Yani Huygh, Panpan Cucul, Aline Meier, Gorilla, Mirko Ilic, Touchy Studios, Maryse El Gawly, FindYourLogo, Guido de Boer, Goldberg Cohen, Robert Canak, Max Valcheux, Kris Andrew Small, Jordy van den Nieuwendijk, Andrzej Wieteszka, Estelle Bizet, Amélie Tingsnäs, Stefan van den Heuvel, Claudia Pazzaglia, Alessio Zoni, Qian Qian, Things Dre Makes, Studio de Ronners, Mao Yamamoto, MaartjeMerel.
And not to forget some of our own designs.
We’re not just putting smiles on faces, we’ve also put smiles on buildings! For this collab we joined forces with HOBU Amsterdam, Femke Kempkes and Machteld Aardse, to beam a fine selection of curated posters, running for 3 weeks straight with 12 different designs per week, on a building near Amsterdam UMC hospital to support all of the lifesavers over there working their butts off. The projection was even better visible from the local train station. Pretty damn neat, in our humble opinion.
We projected designs from local artists, some of ourselves and a shit ton of submissions from SSSS. After the second run, we received the projection blueprint which allowed us to design some posters specially for the projection.
Oh, and in case you were wondering, there’s only two of these special projectors in the WORLD. Beam me up, Scotty!