Mark Daye, a 4th year graphic design student at OCAD, created a series of seven official looking signs around Toronto warning pedestrians of the city’s homelessness conditions. The signs have done a great job of drawing attention to the on-going issue of homelessness in Toronto, and have stirred up much needed discussion.
Instead of rebranding a product, or service for my 4th year thesis project I chose to represent a local population that usually gets overlooked. I re-coded official signage and affixed 30 of them to poles in the downtown core with messages pertaining to an obvious but ignored urban sub culture. The goal was not only to catch people off guard by creating signs that acknowledge the homeless population on a seemingly official level, but to get people to think about codes of behaviour, conformity, acceptance and to maybe spare some consideration for the homeless who live mostly ignored in the city, blending into the background just like the signs.
Mark’s project would have been a great addition to our Christmas homelessness awareness campaign or any future homelessness campaign for that matter…
