Knee High Design Challenge

Design Council

An identity, publication and exhibition for Design Council

Fieldwork Facility designed a playful identity, publication and an immersive launch event / exhibition space for Design Council's Knee High Design Challenge. Knee High was an open call competition aimed at improving the health and wellbeing of children under the age of five in Lambeth and Southwark. Finalists of the competition ranged from Pop-up Parks to Musicals, Apps and Artist interventions. The project needed to engage an adult audience (from politicians to local families) in the pressing needs of young people and where appropriate engage adults in experiencing the team's projects through a child’s or parent's perspective.

The project's design language grew out of the graphic ‘outlines’ found in children’s dot to dots, colouring and puzzle books. 'Outlines’ became a conceptual anchor for the project, working graphically but also resonating with the Knee High teams’ approaches to providing simple guidelines for play and stress free parenting.

  • communication: Identity / Publication / Exhibition Design / Posters / Applied Graphics / Environment / Photography / Typography & Type Design
  • experience: Experience / Communication Ecosystems
The logo was an adaptation of Design Council's branding, paired with playful photography and an 'outlines' graphic language inspired by colouring books

The publication borrowed the nostalgic form of children’s puzzlebooks developing a graphic language inspired by the bold graphic outlines found in children's puzzles and games.

The publication was a careful balance of engaging adults with childhood whilst underlining the serious nature of the Knee High projects and the pressing issues facing children under five's health and wellbeing in Lambeth and Southwark.

Publication covers and spreads
A bespoke typeface ‘Knee High Stencil’ was designed within the 'outlines' concept. The typeface was based on the vernacular of children’s play–stencils found in poundshops
Photography was all shot by Howie (with real families) from a ‘knee-high perspective’ (at a five year old's height or from a parent's perspective)

For the immersive exhibition / event space the ‘outlines’ concept was pushed into physical form. Structures relating to each of the six Knee High projects took an ‘outline’ form and were used to hang information about each of the projects and their teams. The event encouraged the audience to adopt a playful mindset and fill in the gaps with their imagination.

The exhibition space doubled as event space for presentations and networking events
The identity was placed back into Southwark & Lambeth for families to play with creating imagery for speaker slides, press shots and publication covers