The Green Dots of Connecticut College No one has to do everything. Everyone has to do something.
Aline Andreolla-Feijรณ & Molly McAleer
Our statement We created a typeface incorporating the turquoise ribbon worn to sho support and solidarity for domestic violence and sexual assault. Using this typeface to create posters with messages of hope, we wanted to link the empowerment of wearing the ribbon to the empowerment of the messages on these posters. We created the messages based off phrases written by Green Dot Grads, working with Darcy and Green Dot to raise awareness about sexual and domestic violence. The turquoise ribbon is the national symbol of sexual assault awareness and domestic violence awareness; therefore our typeface directly links to this awareness and solidarity. Our goal is to create messages of empowerment and raise awareness, therefore we will installed these posters in places most frequented by students such as the dorms, Harris, Blaustein, and Crozier-Williams Student Center. These are not the projected words of victims but rather empowering words meant to prevent and educate about sexual and domestic violence. We hope to raise awareness and inspire action against domestic and sexual violence, specifically within our community of Connecticut College. We are reaching out to the student body to raise awareness and inspire action by using the words of fellow students. This way the messages are by students, for students. We created a map of campus, showing the route we took to put up posters, using a turquoise dot to represent where each poster was placed on campus. The route we chose reflects the most commonly traveled places on campus, and the high traffic areas where we placed posters allows for optimum viewing.
Above: Our typeface created using the Green Dot turquoise awareness ribbon
Our typeface We wanted to maintain the integrity of the folded ribbon, worn to show solidarity and support for sexual and domestic violence, therefore we concentrated on making our letterforms in the same folded style. We hoped to convey the materiality and natural form of the ribbon, in the same hue as the awareness ribbons, which resulted in our final elegant, looping typeface.
Top Right: Building the typeface with the turquoise ribbon Left: The ribbon found in Darcy’s Office that served as inspiration for our typeface
Right: The turquoise ribbon used to create our typeface
Getting our Green Dots We asked members of Safety Net and Green Dot Grads to share thoughts about sexual assault prevention, prompted by the question, “what comes to mind when you think of sexual assault prevention at Connecticut College?� We then used these handwritten thoughts to build out twelve different posters with, what we thought, were the most empowering messages.
Above: The phrases written by Safety Net members and Green Dot Grads that we used to create our posters
The Green Dots we shared All Images: Our posters hung in areas most frequented by students
Where to find our Green Dots JA
Harkness
Knowlton
Windham
Freeman
Tempel Green
Blaustein
Plant
Below: Map of Connecticut College Campus with turguoise dots to show where the posters were placed
The Plex
Shain
Cro
Branford
Smith
KB
Colophon Type used in titles is Helvetica Regular, 72 point. All captions are Helvetica Light and Helvetica Light Oblique, 9 point. Body is Helvetica Regular, 14 point.
This project was created for Art 207, Design I Type and Image, taught by Professor Wollensak at Connecticut College. The idea for the project was to incorporate the design skills gained throughout the semester to support civic and cultural causes. We had to visually communicate a mesage in letterforms that we created, and use these forms to convey a message that is by or about a social issue or community. We also needed to build an alphabet that corresponded to our message and the group we worked with. The final step was documenting the project and creating a printed form that explained the concept through text and visuals.
An initiative of: