The name Lisande handwritten in her own lettering
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Global book launch campaign

Launching a book by His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu to #sharethejoy.

How do we bring the world together when it feels severely fractured? This was the question we had to ask ourselves as the American presidential elections loomed, and the results arrived, coinciding with the book release and campaigns. One thing was true, the world needed joy and peace more than ever before. This project was one of the honors of my life and I think it's incredibly important we keep their laughter, peace, and good trouble in mind while remembering Desmond Tutu's words: “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.”

2016 Project

My role

Creative director
Engagement strategist
Website designer

Services

Workshop facilitation
Brand development
Collateral design
Social media design
Website design & development

Partners

Photography: Chojer
Video: Andrew Mumm
Publisher: Penguin Random House
Book Design: Penguin Creative

His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu are sitting together on two large, comfortable wooden chairs. Desmond Tutu is looking at the Dalai Lama while smiling. The Dalai Lama has his hand placed on the arm of Desmond Tutu in a gesture of friendship and is laughing with his eyes closed.
His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu together in Dharamsala, India during the creation of their book with Doug Abrams.

The Book of Joy campaign

Bringing together global teams, our small studio led the launch of the book with a public-facing website designed for engagement, alongside social media assets, and participated in the creation of the "Joy Campaign", and a series of videos designed for sharing and engagement. A collaborative effort aiming to amplify the book’s message and deliver some peace in a difficult moment.

The landing header of the book page is shown in a white computer mockup
What they are saying

“The world needs joy and compassion more than ever before – and who better than Archbishop Tutu and the Dalai Lama to show us how it is done. This beautiful book takes us on the journey of their friendship and gives us the gift of their wisdom. A bright spot of hope and love in this world.”

Richard Branson

Rapidly developing a visual brand

Our first step was to create a cohesive visual system for the brand. While full-scale brand development wasn’t in scope, we defined core components that all teams could use to ensure consistency as the campaign extended across channels. We drew color inspiration from Desmond Tutu & the Dalai Lama’s signature dress colors, blending them with a natural aesthetic. To align quickly, we also built a shared moodboard together to guide the creative direction.

A page from the small brand guide showing the cover A page from the small brand guide showing the type palette
A page from the small brand guide showing brand elements, in this case a lettering example A page from the small brand guide showing the moodboard
A page from the small brand guide showing the color palette A photo from the trip to India with monks and the writing team. Desmond Tutu and the Dalai Lama are walking together under a yellow umbrella while Doug Abrams is walking next to them. There are snow capped mountains in the background.

Branding and tech workshop

I travelled to San Francisco to run a workshop with the team in California. The full-day session ran through interactive branding activities and an afternoon systems workshop. We ran collaborative activities to define our project goals, generate ideas, and align on upcoming systems and processes.

Doug during the workshop standing in front of butchers paper covered in yellow and pink post-it notes
Doug, myself and a member of the writing team during the workshop
A person is holding a large white posters with the lettering I [insert name] promise to share the joy, see the world through joyful eyes, to find the beauty in everything, appreciate everyone, and let happiness be my guide. To hug strangers along the way, hold dearly onto their stories, and have the courage to let go of my own. To find another, to feel, and to let joy surround me. This is my pledge, join me.
During the workshop we crafted the idea that people would be able to sign a pledge, so with the work of our wonderful lettering artist we created these posters that were then linked to the website and all social campaigns.

Crafting a viral video campaign

We custom-lettered the videos to give the marketing team primary assets for high-impact social and media campaigns. We worked with the various marketing agencies to co-ordinate a global effort of press and community sharing. Figures shown are as at August 2017.

585,965

Social shares

222,692

Reactions

26,942,055

Views

Engaging the public beyond the book

During the project, we designed posters for the public to download, share on social media, and use as wallpapers. We also lettered a pledge for people to sign and share, creating a small but key engagement tool. To support the campaigns team's Joy Experiment, which included SMS-based actions and challenges, we developed a range of supporting assets to bring it to life.

Work praise

It is entirely due to you all that this remarkable thing has happened and rather feebly and inadequately I want say a big thank you to you all. His Holiness (the Dalai Lama) and I are basking in your reflected glory.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu

Project completion

An image focused on the hands of Desmond Tutu and the Dalai Lama squeezing each other's hand with a mockup of the book we added and the text two spiritual giants, one world changing conversation, you.
A computer tablet and phone mockup with various social media graphics for the project
One of the social media posts with one of the videos we participated in
A book mockup I quickly whipped up with our #sharethejoy lettering
A GIF for the Joy Experiment campaign showing a smiley face where the mouth smile part makes the word joy
An image of Desmond Tutu laughing from the meeting with a quote laugh at yourself and don't be so pompous and serious. If you start looking for the humor in life, you will find it.
An image of the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu laughing from the meeting with a quote from the Dalai Lama that laughter is very good for your heart.
The Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu laughing
Desmond Tutu pointing his finger at the Dalai Lama who is laughing loudly
The Dalai Lama taking the hand of Desmond Tutu agaist his cheek in a warm gesture while laughing

Interactive website

With a small but crucial website, our goal was not just to drive more reach and promote book sales, but importantly to engage people. We implemented several interactive elements to encourage participation across the site, aligning with the #sharethejoy campaign. I read the book in full and shaped our ideas around the key principles it spoke of.

  1. I crafted an area on the site where you could send a letter of joy to a friend or family member.
  2. We developed materials to download, take a picture with, and have it featured so we could count and share joy participants across the world and ignite the conversations.
  3. I designed a page to outline the seven obstacles of joy from the book, with related small clips that joined with actions and pledges you could immediately tweet out.

The design needed to reach a huge market segment of a worldwide audience (predominantly 65% women), ages 20 – 70 (primary age market 40 – 55), and was requested not to be minimal and slick but rather to combine a feel of the older world charm and adventure in a modern design. With just a few weeks up our sleeve, we carried this through in the background texture, incorporating maps of where the three authors met handdrawn by our great illustrator, and featuring lettering for the adventure aspect.

The home page of the website design from a live shot

Social media

We devised the content to #sharethejoy and created a stream of graphics and style for marketing to use, primarily on Facebook and Instagram. We made plenty of GIFs from the videos during this time to capitalize on this trend as they were perfect for invoking joy and sharing.

A website page for the invitation of joy the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu were sharing
The send a letter of joy website page
Photo of the DL and DT dancing with a DT quote saying it is when we are closed in on ourselves that we tend to be miserable. It is when we grow in a self-forgetfulness in a remarkable way, that we discover that we are filled with joy. A photo of water and mountains with lots of blue sky showing a DT quote that forgiveness is the only way to heal ourselves and to be free from the past
A blue hour mountains image with the DT quote you are made for perfection but you are not yet perfect, you are a masterpiece in the making A blue hour night sky with a bright full moon and snow capped mountains at the bottom of the image with the DT quote the very fact of not thinking about your own frustration and pain does something
A dusty purple sky covers most of the image with forest trees peeking through from the bottom and the DL quote in fact, taking care of others, helping others, ultimately is the way to discover your own joy and have a happy life A faded mountain pathway into the big sky with a DT quote reading how we face negative determines who we will be
A photo of yellow grass field with a dusty rose sky covering most of the image and a DL quote: when things go smoothly we can pretend we are something very special. But something happens, something unexpected, then we are forced to act like normal human beings A photo of the DL and DT with their foreheads touching and a DL quote that too much self-centred thinking is the source of suffering. A compassionate concern for other's wellbeing is the source of happiness.
The name Lisande handwritten in her own lettering