Normally, when you create a brand and a campaign, you’re selling something. Without a product or even an ask from the people we were “marketing” to, what exactly was it we were trying to sell? I think it was finally decided that what we were telling ourselves we were doing was selling hope? Or providing transparency? Well the website is now down so transparency is a bust.

Lifebridge got a sizable federal grant, so they weren’t searching for donations or asking the community to vote. It was merely a campaign to let them know that something was already happening and will continue to happen. I knew the agency I was working at was getting paid for this, but I couldn’t convince anyone to let me pay the people in our video. I had to actually go into a store, get $200 from the ATM and hand a man cash in the street because it felt like the most hypocritical thing possible to not pay him. But that’s what we do, I guess. Lie for a living! Ugh.

Oh I forgot I was talking about this project. So we started with a name (not my idea for the name), a logo and a color palette. Then we moved to create straightforward imagery and impactful assets for the LifeBridge “campaign” to usher in the announcement of this initiative. I was told this was about letting the residents of East St. Louis know what was being built, how they got the funding, and who was behind it all. Instead, here’s a basically fake campaign that no one saw.