Safeguarding London's People
London Metropolitan Police (Met Police) faced criticism for their ineffectiveness in protecting vulnerable people. They needed to take considerable measures to raise the profile of safeguarding internally and enable their officers to participate.
About this project
In response to public criticism, the Met Police introduced a 'Keeping London Safe' strategy aligned to a vision that aspired "to be the most trusted police service in the world." A core element of this strategy was safeguarding. Safeguarding is the role of officers to look out for and report any signs of vulnerable children or adults who are at risk of, or showing experience of, abuse or being subject to a crime.
After an earlier campaign focused on the process of logging safeguarding reports, this project involved creating a second campaign that appealed to officers from an attitudinal and emotional stance.
Design Challenge
The Met Police faced many significant hurdles that impacted their ability to engage in safeguarding actively. Just some of these issues were;
- Cuts to overall officer numbers meant increased workloads
- Complex (and often digital) cases made it harder to identify people at risk
- Though officers carried tablets, software constraints made it hard to record safeguarding issues in real-time.
The consensus was that officers were aware of the concept of safeguarding, but they also had a raft of other responsibilities to consider. What wasn't overtly clear was how safeguarding pertained to their role, nor did they feel confident participating in it. We needed to change that - We aimed to encourage all officers to engage in safeguarding as part of their daily activities, believing it to be a duty central to their role and why they do it.
Above: Design charette from user workshop illustrating desired product feature.
Creative Role
I worked as the creative owner of this project. The initial stage would be to provide the client with multiple creative directions in response to the brief. We'd use this as a temperature check to see how willing the client was to push creatively, using their input to develop a single route that could achieve the desired behavioral shift.
Having established a core identity, I'd move on to review the campaign messaging and team with art workers to develop assets and achieve the print and digital standards pitched to the client.
Creative solution
Photography played a pivotal role in the campaign aesthetic. We wanted to create a personal connection between the subject and the viewer by using close-cropped portraits. I edited the chosen images to reveal every small detail and enhance its realness while the eyes stared back at the viewer, holding their gaze, creating a personal one-on-one connection. Though simple, it's an effective way of humanizing the message - that through safeguarding, officers could profoundly affect a person's circumstances.
Bottom: Comparison between the existing project page template and the new design using our page framework.
The monotone color grade added a dramatic tone and served as a canvas for the striking typography to jump off the page. In addition, the fluorescent Hi-Vis color palette functioned in much the same way as its use for police vehicles and uniforms - to cut through visual traffic, command the viewer's attention, and demonstrate its importance to readers.
I leveraged the Hi-Vis colors (yellow and green) to communicate from two different perspectives. The yellow text would show how an officer's actions could help protect a member of the public, while the green would show how it could affect a colleague. This dual message approach would help visualize the knock-on effects of their actions and, to an extent, also show how safeguarding could deliver tangible benefits for themselves and their colleagues.
Bottom: Digital assets for screensavers and billboards across the Met Police estates.
With its bold aesthetics and intense portraits, this vivid new identity achieved the objectives initially set out by the Met Police. It commanded the attention and delivered stark messaging and images that framed safeguarding unequivocally as a human issue, playing on officers' duty to protect vulnerable people.
In 2020 this campaign received a nomination for "Best Ongoing Communication" at the IoIC awards. An awards body that celebrates the highest examples of communication design in the UK.
Bottom: Onboarding pop-up overlay introducing users to new features available on @work.
