When you need to raise a serious amount of funding and you only have £50 (or about $75) to spend, there’s only one thing to do: call a designer. That’s why one of the most successful campaigns for the Entrepreneur 2015 Fundraising Challenge hosted by Countess Mountbatten Hospice Charity (CMHC) is Nifty–50, a vastly diverse poster collection by Socio Design, a design, strategy, and branding firm based in London.
Socio Design asked an international group of creatives to interpret the word “money” in a poster that will be produced in an edition of one and auctioned off by Friday, December 4. A poster series might sound like old hat, but we’d argue that a good designer can make anything fresh and compelling. For proof, you need only click through the results of Nifty 50, which range from boldly illustrative to totally typographic.
Some visual themes emerged. Enlarged Monopoly images are the focus of three entries. S-T and dn&co, both London-based studios, feature Rich Uncle Pennybags and the GO!, respectively. For S-T, Pennybags represents wealth, greed, and a ruthless determination to win at all costs. For dn&co, the GO! mark from the game board can act as a directive to go forth and donate boldly. The Madrid studio Serial Cut chose a slightly worn silver Scottish terrier game token as the star of their entry. Posed with its backside facing the camera, the wee dog is photographed on a red backdrop that reads:
“Money Rules the World, sadly this is…shit.”
Nesting geometric “shells” give a nod to the classic Swiss designs of the ’60s on the poster by SEA Design, another London branding firm. Lettering and type designer Rob Clarke has rendered “Moola” in a voluptuous script apt for a word that evokes large amounts. “I decided to be generous when drawing its curves.”
Swedish creative agency BVD chose a literary approach, placing the headline “Yes, of course it hurts,” around a heavy poem by Karin Boye about fear, loss, and the darker side of money. Atlas, a design consultancy in Palma de Mallorca, keeps it simple with a well-placed bold sans serif “give,” a real dollar bill dotting the “i.” Straightforward and effective; in their words, “A good poster should speak for itself.”
