AIGA Design for Good — Turn the Labels

Turn the Labels was the culmination of a several month project undertaken during my time at Lucid Agency. When I got to Lucid there was a real need to foster and engender a deeper institutional understanding of design thinking, and so we split two groups up and started IDEO’s ‘Course for Human-Centered Design.’ The group I was a part of included Lucid’s business analyst, senior account member, and a graphic design intern. Over the course of several months, tons of interviews, and a lot of brainstorming sessions, we ended up with an evening for local creatives to learn more about opioid addiction (and it’s specific impacts in Arizona) and also to reflect and react to it in a visual manner.

The event was the hardest public speaking I’ve ever done. Though I thought I’d prepared myself effectively before the official run, there was still a profound emotional undercurrent for myself and the others in attendance who’d had too much firsthand experience with the aftermath of opioid addiction. (Hint: any experience is too much in this case.)

Partnering with AIGA’s Design for Good program helped make sure the event received wider recognition and awareness than we’d been able to drum up on our own and the outcome was greater than we could have expected. The name ‘Turn the Labels’ was a play on words reflecting both the way we view addicts, and the way we were asking attendees to respond to it; everyone who came was given markers, labels, and orange prescription bottles to use as the medium for communicating their reaction. The output of all their efforts can be seen at https://www.instagram.com/turnthelabels/. There are two videos that hit me the absolute hardest, first:

The above response really encapsulated one of the themes of the discussion about the slippery slope from prescribed opioid use to incarceration to…worse. The second video comes from Lucid’s own Lauren Jordan, who found a way to make your stomach hurt with a short phrase:

“Take as much as you need a day in any manner you feel until all hope is gone.” WOOF.

Anyone interested in learning a little more about this project can either check this link out: https://arizona.aiga.org/design-for-good-spotlight-jeremy-hamman-turn-the-labels/ or just hit me up. It makes me sad and sick every time I read a new story.