Five FREE mask posters for you to download.
This article was written by Tom Cronk, Group Head of Marketing for The Good Life Society, for our sister site, Some Good Ideas.
In late July, Charlie Gladstone (The Good Life Society’s co-founder) gave me a call. This is obviously a fairly regular thing when you have an employer-employee relationship. But the good things about Charlie’s calls is that they so often involve the germ of a good idea.
It was on one of these calls, I think Charlie must have been in the car on the way to Glen Dye, as it was a long call, that we hatched a plan to work with a handful of first-rate designers to produce a series of posters. The posters would be for shopkeepers across the country to display in their windows. The prints would act as an antidote to the hurried, Government-issued signs you see adorn so many walls. All blue and yellow and uninspiring.
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If, by some bizarre circumstance, the person who designed the Government posters is reading this, I apologise. I genuinely think the ‘standard’ infographics and signs are spectacular pieces of visual communication. But surely some variety couldn’t hurt?
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I hope it won’t surprise you to read that we care about good design. This passion cuts right to the heart of everything we do at The Good Life Society, both in Wales at Hawarden as well as in Scotland at Glen Dye. Across our work we want to make the world a more beautiful place. And now we want to help make the world a safer place, too.
So, throughout August and September 2020, we employed three wonderful designers to create a total of five knock-out posters. These are the people we chose to work with:
Poster #1. James Brown.
We’ve worked with James on a number of projects down the years, and I’ve long been an admirer without a project of my ‘own’ to commission him on. This brief allowed me to set that straight.
If you’re familiar with some of our businesses, you may recognise James’ work as he has produced festival posters and postcards for The Good Life Experience. He also sold a number of his lovely Information Prints via our Marketplace at Pedlars.
Shortly after I approached James with the idea he came back with a rough first draft. I knew at once that the design was going to work, so with a few tweaks and a lot of linocutting later, James arrived at the finished piece.
As with all the posters, we’ll be selling a small number of limited edition prints via our General Store, with 20% going to the National Emergencies Trust. Each print will be signed, dated and numbered by James, having been linocut and printed by the artist in London.
But the vast majority will be given away, for free, for people to print at home or at work.
Poster #2. Crispin Finn.
Anna and Roger (the couple behind the name, Crispin Finn) are another example of ‘people I was looking for an excuse to work with’. It’s incredible that my job allows such pleasures, and I wasn’t going to miss out here either.
Some of you may remember the seriously cool wall charts Anna and Roger make for things like the football World Cup or European Championships. Others will know their iconic red, white and blue palette from the best coffee/card shops around - we sold their stuff in the Pedlars General Store, naturally.
When I briefed Anna and Roger they politely declined the wording we suggested, and promptly came back with this design. I love it. And I suspect it may well prove to be incredibly popular.
You can buy a limited edition print via our shop, or download the PDFs for free by clicking the buttons below.
Apologies in advance for your blue ink running out!
Posters #3, #4 and #5. Samantha Wilkinson.
Samantha is another designer we have worked with previously. She helped design Some Good Ideas, during a manic but brilliant two week period of national lockdown in late March and early April.
Sam had also created her own, original pro-mask designs weeks before we had our good idea. And whilst hers are a little more rude than ours, we absolutely loved the spirit of them. So, when Sam delivered more than her allocated number of designs (I had only asked for one), I knew we had to use them all.
The result is a set of three prints which work well together, or as stand alone pieces. I can imagine one in the car park, another on the door or in the window at the chippy, and another as you approach the counter to order your haddock, chips, mushy peas and curry sauce.
Sam’s prints are also available via our shop, with 20% of all sales going to the National Emergencies Trust.
If you would like to download one, or all three, use the buttons below.
Thank you James, Anna, Roger and Samantha. We love your work!
