Studio > Paid to Pollute

Kickstarting a crucial legal campaign

In 2021, Climate Justice activists Mikaela Loach, Jeremy Cox and Kairin Van Sweeden took the UK government to court over billions of pounds of public money awarded to the oil and gas industry. We collaborated with Uplift, the organisation supporting the claimants, to give this radical initiative a face and a name.

paidtopollute.org.uk

Organisation: Uplift
Services: Design facilitation, Content support, Brand Design, UI/UX, Visual Design, Development
Credits: Debs Durojaiye, Juliette Mothe, Kevin Lewis

Photo by Paid to Pollute

Challenge

Unlike most visual identities, Paid to Pollute’s walked a fine line between rallying people in the streets and denouncing corporations in court, all the while looking engaging and trustworthy in its digital form.

An identity made to protest and agitate

A collage of photos of people holding signs saying 'Paid to pollute' at a protest

Photo by Paid to Pollute

A collection of paid to pollute site pages laid out in a tile format

Opportunity

This unique challenge required us to craft striking yet simple visuals that wouldn’t get in the way of print adaptations into protest signs and banners. A self-explanatory, bold and adaptable identity was in order to ensure content always came first.

Creating a straightforward yet rallying identity

A black and white oil rig collage with bank notes

Strategy

Working at Uplift’s pace

During the month leading up to the trial announcement, we worked with Gabriel Davalos and his team on a name, an identity and a campaign website in less than a few weeks. Amid evolving content and data points, updates from their lawyers and all other moving parts, we made sure Uplift didn’t need to worry about us keeping up the pace.

Sprinting to get the campaign ready to share by the court announcement

Adding features as the case evolves

Within the last year, Uplift discovered new needs, which we reflected in their website and features. Our end goal with every addition has been to make the organisation as autonomous as possible in updating their content.

Expanding our work across different channels

One of the key requirements of this work was the adaptability of Paid To Pollute’s identity. We had the opportunity to showcase how it was meant to behave in producing a set of protest signs and banners matching their website and social media presence.