Hidden Help: Giving a small charity a big voice

Hidden Help is a Cornwall-based charity that helps furnish homes of those in need.

When we say furnish, we don’t mean new rugs and matching curtains.

We mean providing the basic necessities to those who simply don’t have them - tables, bedsheets, chairs, lamps, cutlery, pillows, sofas.

Often people, such as the homeless, those feeling domestic violence, refugees, the long-term ill, are rehomed and provided with little more than four walls and a roof.

No furniture. Certainly no dignity.

Charity advertising is highly competitive.

The more the public see, the more numb they become.

So, it was essential that we made sure our voice was different to the rest.

After all, we had the challenge of trying to make people care about a plate, a bedsheet, and a table.

We ensured our art direction stood out a mile in newspapers.

Sparse, cold, and minimal.

Even the typography was as plain and unassuming as possible.

Everything was out of kilter. Off centre. Uncomfortable.

To echo the lives of those in need.

The backgrounds were made from the textures of each of the images, a sweaty sheet, a damaged countertop, and a ripped up wall.

All further cementing the feelings of desperation among these groups in society.

These ads featured in newspapers in the English county of Cornwall, and we even managed to secure free media space in The Times for national coverage.

And we helped make sure that Hidden Help became a lot less hidden.