Due to COVID-19, Other Collective Media had to prioritize our social media posts and online content. We started making visual news stories on instagram.
In July 2020, we experienced a 1500% growth on our platform, due to our coverage of global events in the SA/SWANA regions. Currently, @other_collective has over 15,000 followers on instagram, & its continuing to grow rapidly.
News Designer
June 2020 - March 2021
Adobe Illustrator
Social Media Manager
There are many global problems facing the SA/SWANA regions today: the Humanitarian Crisis in Yemen, Israel/Palestine relations, police brutality in India, Covid-19 in SA/SWANA regions, etc. Each issue is complex & requires alot of research. How can we make our western audience aware of these issues, and what do we do when we get their attention?
Our main medium was Instagram, which only allows 10 slides per image gallery, and we are often able to link content. Additionally, there’s a lot of information out there, we needed to consolidate all of the information to as little as possible. Our research documents often have > 30 pages, and we have to cut down to 1.5 pages in order to fit Instagram.
In order for the most effective social media posts, we had to do the following:
For our Design, i used readable fonts: Bebas Neue & open sans. I chose them because they are easy to read on small sizes such as phones. Our color scheme was teal & yellow, in order to match the branding.
Yemen is currently facing the worlds worst Humanitarian crisis, being compounded with war, famine, disease, and COVID-19 (Read more here). We realized that this wasn’t covered in the media at large.
Yemen is currently facing the worlds worst Humanitarian crisis, being compounded with war, famine, disease, and COVID-19 (Read more here). We realized that this wasn’t covered in the media at large.
Here's some slides from an infographic we did on Lebanon. While the crisis in Lebanon is ongoing, this post became viral as a response to the port of Beirut explosion in summer 2020.
We've done a few posts on India. There were two posts created on the topic of police brutality and casteism.
Design can help people understand complex issues, but we also have to encourage them to learn more. However, Audience research is key. It's important to take into account the SA/SWANA perspective when reporting about global issues, because it often can be misrepresented.