Direct Mail Campaigns
client
World Vision
My role
Art Director | Designer
Software
InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator, After Effects
brief
During my time at HackerAgency, I had the privilege of working with World Vision, a Christian humanitarian organization dedicated to helping children, families, and their communities overcome poverty and injustice. With World Vision as my primary client, my focus was centered on creating compelling direct mail campaigns and accompanying assets, including email communications. These initiatives targeted diverse groups, ranging from child sponsors to occasional donors supporting broader campaigns aiding children in need. For sponsors, our mailers often included gifts intended for the sponsored child, fostering meaningful connections between sponsors and beneficiaries. Understanding the broad spectrum of our audience, spanning various ages and backgrounds, I led the development of each campaign's unique look and feel, ensuring resonance and impact across demographics.
Execution
For the mailers that are sent to sponsors, I tried to make these ones a little more fun and eye-catching since these not only contain a gift for the sponsored child but generally the sponsor and their own children are involved with the gift too when they write a message to the sponsored child. In addition to the visuals resonating more with a younger audience, the messaging within the letter needed to remain a little more positive than some of our other campaigns. The most exciting part of these mailers, but also the most challenging, is coming up with a gift idea. We had campaigns for birthdays, holidays, back to school, and more. For each of these I had to ideate a fun yet educational gift, that’ll fit within a regular envelope, and that would be appealing for children between the ages of 3-18. I generally utilized my illustration skills for these campaigns where I could, being mindful of what I choose to illustrate as what might resonate with children in the states won’t necessarily resonate with children in other parts of the world. For the campaigns that are sent to occasional donors, these ones generally had more of a serious tone and were meant to really show the urgency and needs of these children. We would usually highlight a story of a particular child and their experiences, using very impactful photos of them and their families to emphasize the difficulties they face. We always try to add an educational element to these too, so we’ll include an insert that goes more into depth of the problems the country or community faces as a whole. In designing mailers for the sponsor group, my aim was to infuse them with a sense of joy and allure, recognizing that these envelopes not only carry gifts for sponsored children but also involve sponsors and their own children in the heartfelt act of writing messages. These mailers are created with a younger audience in mind, they boast vibrant visuals and maintained a positive messaging tone, distinguishing them from our other campaigns. The most exciting part, yet challenging aspect, of these projects was devising suitable gift ideas for various occasions, including birthdays, holidays, and back-to-school events. Each gift concept needed a balance of entertainment and education, mindful of the diverse age range of recipients spanning from 3 to 18 years old. Leveraging my illustration skills, I created captivating visuals, cognizant of cultural nuances that might differ across regions worldwide. Conversely, mailers directed at occasional donors assumed a more somber tone, aiming to underscore the urgency and plight of the children in need. These campaigns often spotlighted the personal narratives of individual children, using impactful photographs emphasizing their struggles alongside their families. The mailers are usually complemented by an educational insert shedding light on broader societal issues faced by the country or community, these mailers aimed to evoke empathy and drive action towards meaningful change.