826CHI
Creating a writer’s future.
826CHI is the Chicago branch of 826 National, a non-profit youth writing and tutoring center network dedicated to amplifying the voices of the next generation of creative writers. We were honored when they asked us to create a series of Chicagoland billboards showcasing student work to drive awareness of their cause.
Our Services
Art Direction
Copywriting
Billboard Design
Typography
With 826CHI, the EightySeven team was asked to create a series of billboards featuring excerpts of student writing to drive awareness of their program. The goal was to create a design that could accommodate the excerpts, titles of the work, names of the authors, and a succinct call to action that drove awareness of the program and provided additional context for the quotes in a way that was both modern and visually appealing.
Having been tasked with leveraging several excerpts of student work that already exceeded the traditional word count for billboard messaging, we wanted to create designs that were energetic, compelling, and highly scannable.
We used iconic, lyric-forward concert posters as our inspiration, breaking the lines into vibrant, dynamic type expositions and pairing them with succinct calls to action that drove traffic to their site, attendees to their Prologue event, and sales of the collected works of the 826CHI young writers.
826CHI is a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting students ages 6-18 with their creative and expository writing skills and to helping teachers inspire their students to write. Their services are structured around our understanding that great leaps in learning can happen with one-on-one attention, and that strong writing skills are fundamental to future success.