Semana, is not about writing news, is about inspiring big changes.
Story
Since 1990, Colombia has endured a silent but deadly problem: landmines. By the end of 2016, the country had over 11,460 reported victims and almost 52 million square meters of its territory where mined, making Colombia the second most affected country in the world by landmines, just behind Afghanistan. Although this problem has been around for almost 20 years, it has remained almost invisible to the media, the government and the public’s eyes, as other more appealing news took the headlines. We knew the only way to make the landmine problem visible was to put it on the headlines and front covers, that’s why we created THE HELP FONT, a typeface that no matter the words we write with it, their meaning will always be the same: No more landmines. To design that typography, we “mutilated” letters and gave them back their functionality by using parts of others to represent prosthetic limbs. The outcome was a beautiful new typeface, which became a symbol of all landmine victims in Colombia.
Philosophy
If people can learn to read, we can teach to help.
Problem
With 11.400 victims and 52 million square meters of its territory sown with landmines, Colombia is the second worst affected country by these devices, behind Afghanistan. After 20 years of struggle, this problem has never received the government and the media’s attention it deserves, making most Colombian’s unaware of the gravity of the situation.
Result
We achieved our main objective: For the first time, landmines and our typography where on the headlines of all news magazines. T.V channels, websites and radio stations joined our campaign, even some used the font, earning more than 2 million USD in free press. The typography itself became a symbol to remember the tragedy of landmines in Colombia Colombian government approved a 500 million USD budget to create a ground force that will clear all Colombian territory over the next three years, making 2016 as the year with the most progress was made in the fight against landmines. So, our magazine’s influence and power to inspire changes was completely demonstrated. Finally, Semana Magazine received the biggest journalists award (CPB), thanks to its landmine special report, this way, the quality of information was also demonstrated.