… + mental health =
The official logo for the non-profit National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) (not designed by Michael Foote).
Crafting this hypothetical public service announcement for a pre-existing client brought the challenge of representing a concept as abstract as mental health in a manner that was tangible and accessible enough to reach new audiences. While mental health permeates public discourse, many people continue to suffer without even knowing or realizing they can get help.
A group of diverse, expressive portraits compile to form a dissonant collage, embodying the variable instability of mental illness. The range of facial features both orient neatly and work at contrasting scales & positions to create a unified, unsettling face. The dissonance remains just enough to read as one figure with an array of emotion and experience.
Just as the pieces do not align perfectly, the overall outline of the image collage is similarly asymmetrical, further pushing that “there is no one image of mental illness.”
The central form is reminiscent of the shape of the human brain, unified by bright swatches of red. Following to the bleed of color behind the text, the offset type contributes to the collective sense of unease and discomfort in the face.
The print ultimately demonstrates the disparities in mental health with a challenging image that is simultaneously hard to grapple with and impossible to ignore.
“There is no one image of mental illness, yet many people mistakenly dismiss their own struggle when it does not fit into a strict definition. Helping a loved one realize the validity of their symptoms is just a click or call away.”