Reinventing the wheel
Whizz-Kidz
The client
Whizz-Kidz is a charity which supports – and works to transform the lives of – disabled children around the UK.
The brief
We were asked to design a campaign for Whizz-Kidz, to publicise the charity’s competition asking young wheelchair users to design their dream wheelchair.
What we delivered
The campaign sees Whizz-Kidz partner with Duchenne UK, The University of Edinburgh and the People’s Postcode Lottery. This allowed us to move away from Whizz-Kidz’ core green colour palette and have a bit of fun with colour, pattern and texture. This allowed the campaign to really stand out and grab the attention of young wheelchair users.
In developing the creative, we were careful not to include any detailed designs for, or illustration of wheelchairs; we didn’t want to influence or limit entrants’ ideas in any way. Every young wheelchair user is different and every wheelchair is different and we wanted to find a way to say “Go crazy, anything goes, make it epic.”
We attacked the brief with a purely illustrative approach, creating a family of different wheels to represent each entrants’ unique requirements or ideas. Using wheels also helps to convey a sense of motion – and allowed us to have some fun with animated spinning wheels.
What the client said
“We were really impressed with how Sherlock approached this project. It was apparent right from our first conversation about the brief that they really understood the nuances of the audiences we wanted to connect with and the messages we wanted to convey.
We required artwork that would appeal to teens and young adults without alienating children. We also wanted to communicate themes of creativity and innovation without using didactic visual examples of wild and wonderful wheelchairs themselves.
Sherlock really rose to this challenge and provided us with several initial concepts that were all so impressive that we struggled settling on just one. The concept we chose was then developed into a suite of assets that we used to promote the competition primarily online (website, social media and an e-marketing campaign to both schools and individuals).
The competition itself was a huge success with us receiving over 160 entries (around four times the number we had anticipated) and the standard of the entries was really high. On the day we launched the campaign we saw both our reach and engagement double across social media (Twitter, Facebook and Instagram) too – it was clear the competition was connecting with audiences, and Sherlock’s artwork certainly played a part in this too.
The work Sherlock did has captured the attention of our colleagues here at Whizz-Kidz as well, and we’ve since commissioned them to work on our annual impact report. Their imaginative approach has inspired us to reflect on our brand as a whole, opening us up to being more daring and playful in our attempts to connect with beneficiaries and supporters.” Sam Hepworth, Head of Communications and Digital Media, Whizz-Kidz
