The Canadian Bar Association’s (CBA) Municipal Law Section published a toolkit called “Tackling Homelessness” in November 2019. I was tasked with providing a theme for the imagery to be used in association with this toolkit and sourcing the images for said theme.
I started with two concepts; public benches and people. I searched on Unsplash and iStock for images I could use for both themes.
This visual theme was meant to be a more abstract representation of the toolkit’s message – homelessness. Benches – particularly park benches – are commonly used by homeless people as a place to sleep. This visual theme was meant as a way to share the message of the toolkit in a subtle way.
This visual theme was meant as a more direct representation of the homelessness message. This theme was meant to be more obvious, showing homeless people. This theme would be intended to invoke an immediate representation of what the toolkit is about.
The direct representation of the theme was chosen because it was the most impactful theme. CBA’s overall visual theme is dark with high contrast. I edited the photos to match this theme but we thought something was missing. I decided to try making the images black and white but something was still missing. I then played with masks to make different portions of the image orange. Orange was chosen because it is the colour associated with the CBA’s Municipal Law Section.
Highlighting an article of clothing of the person in focus was wearing added enough colour to the image without taking away the focus from the person. With the high contrast already added to the images, making an article of clothing drew the attention to the person.
