Love The Ocean

Branding / Visual Language / Merchandise
It’s easy to say we love the ocean, but for many of us, our everyday actions tell a different story. Seas of plastic, declining fish stocks and ocean acidification are just some examples of the destruction caused to the ocean by our everyday activities, which also have a profound effect on our health and wellbeing. Our relationship with the ocean has become toxic and one-sided. After all, the ocean loves us in many real ways – like giving us more oxygen than all the rainforests combined, climate regulation, food, medicines and a variety of recreational opportunities.

‘Love the Ocean’ is a campaign I worked on in conjunction with Sea Change which is a project based on how European citizens view their relationship with the sea, by empowering them as Ocean Literate citizens, to take direct and sustainable action towards a healthy ocean and seas. ‘Love the Ocean’ was based on rebalancing our relationship with the ocean by asking people to show their appreciation and pledge to take real action each day to help the ocean by sharing their actions online in a photo or video and tagging it with #LovetheOcean.

My brief: was to design an icon/brand mark that could represent this campaign which was mainly being featured on social media. There was also a conference being held in Paris on valentines day to promote the campaign, so the identity had to work in various formats and on merchandise. I designed a simple mark of a heart with waves cut through it to represent Love The Ocean. The image of the two seals caressing was perfect for the theme of ‘love’ and what I chose to become the hero image of the campaign.