This campaign strives to cultivate a public sense of awareness around a few of the many common causes of homelessness, achieved through avid storytelling and removal of persons’ from everyday situations they may face. Specifically, this campaign draws to light these drivers of homelessness by creating a juxtaposition between the common situations the viewer may find themselves in. With targeted facts, the campaign also aims to help those at risk of homelessness self identify. The truth is, almost anyone can be “One Step Away” from homelessness. And we’re here to address that.

1. One Step Away
All images in this campaign were either original
images or licensed under the Creative Commons:
License Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC
BY-SA 2.0).
All facts sourced from:
Hchmd.org
HudExchange.Info
Nationalhomeless.org
Nctsnet.org
Npaf.org
SafeHorizon.org
Designed by Sapphire Reels

2. This campaign strives to cultivate a public sense
of awareness around a few of the many common
causes of homelessness, achieved through avid
storytelling and removal of persons’ from everyday
situations they may face.
Specifically, this campaign draws to light these
drivers of homelessness by creating a juxtaposition
between the common situations the viewer may
find themselves in. With targeted facts,
the campaign also aims to help those at risk of
homelessness self identify.
The truth is, almost anyone can be “One Step
Away” from homelessness. And we’re here to
address that.
Cause & Angle
The Campaign

3. Audience & Call to Action
The public at large has many misconceptions as
to why and how people are currently experiencing
homelessness. Perceptions of people who are in
this situation tend to range from the “drunkards
and addicts” end to the “mentally ill” end. While
this is true, there is so much more to be said for
how a person can end up in this position.
This campaign targets the general public on a large
scale and also any potential at-risk person who
may be able to self-identify that they are on the
drink of homelessness.
The broad call to action is for the general public to
alter their mind set while the specific call to ask is
to get people to the website, where they can learn
more, and again, potentially self-identify.

4. This typeface was picked for its playful nature.
Homelessness is a heavy subject and this aims to
keep in line with the tone of the campaign copy.
Typography
Design Elements
The yellow, blue, and pink hues serve to grab
attention and draw the viewer in. The gray is in
direct contrast to show the sharp decline that can
occur in a person’s life in the blink of an eye, a
situation that is usually as bleak as the color itself.
Color Palette
The logo employs the “O” shape for the sake of
the campaign namesake. The arrow is utilized to
show directionality, reminiscent of the overall
campaign name.
Logo

5. Brandon Grotesque
Medium
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNO
PQRSTUVWXYZ
abcdefghijklmno
pqrstuvwxyz
Brandon Grotesque
Bold
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNO
PQRSTUVWXYZ
abcdefghijklmno
pqrstuvwxyz
This campaign is driven by storytelling. The cam-
paign uses three different stories that address a
broad target audience in order impart the “it could
be you” aspect of the campaign. These three sto-
ries are described later in detail. There is also an
opportunity for site visitors to submit their own
stories, furthering the impact.
Storytelling
The dotted line is used to represent a person
“plucked” from society. This is integrated into
the story, so were someone only to see this one
ad, they would get a sense of the things someone
would miss due to homelessness.
Dotted Line
Juxtaposition plays a large role in this campaign to
increase the impact of the quick decline in a per-
sons situation due to some of the common causes
of homelessness.
Juxtaposition

6. Their Stories Lucy

7. Lucy’s story is based on a young girl who gets
sick after playing with a playmate at school who,
unbeknownst to her, had the flu. Lucy’s parents
aren’t in the best situation, and when Lucy’s health
takes a turn for the worst, it requires a hospital
stay they simply do not have the appropriate funds
for. They make the decision to forgo their rent
payments to get Lucy the care she needs, and in
turn, face homelessness from several months of
missed rent.
Lucy’s Story

11. This set of wall-based applications would interact
with the environment. Viewers would first be met
with the image in the top left hand corner of the
previous page and then as the weather degrades
the poster, they would see the slow transition to
Lucy’s new situation. This would be placed in an
area where the same people would be forced to
interact with the campaign daily, like a workplace.
Steve

12. Steve is a lady’s man and he will pull at all the stops
to woo a woman he’s interested in. This lack of
care for his financial position puts him in a dire sit-
uation. He is faced with the truth that he cannot
sustain this lifestyle and begins doing menial tasks,
like bottle picking, to sustain his lifestyle.
Steve’s Story

14. Sarah

15. Sarah recently graduated from undergrad, con-
gratulations to her! She’s got a shiny new job
along with her shiny new diploma, and with this
expected increase in pay, she begins spending the
money she doesn’t have on new clothes for her
jobs and a new, more expensive apartment.
Turns out, Sarah isn’t the best at budgeting and
suddenly, her rent payments become too much of
a burden.
Sarah’s Story

18. The Whole Story
This escalator series is another aspect of the One
Step Away campaign. It uses the escalator as a tool
to represent how one could go from having money
and a stable situation to a not so grand situation in
only a short matter of time.

19. The website is the specific call to action for this
campaign. Campaign viewers are directed to the
website in almost every other component of the
campaign.
On this site, visitors will find the three stories.
So, if a visitor was directed here from a “Where’s
Lucy?” poster, they’ll be enticed to click through.
The Website

20. After being enticed to click through, the user will
be presented with more information on the causes
of each person’s homelessness, as seen in Foldout
1.
Foldout 2 demonstrates the general story area
of the site, where users can read other stories to
promote awareness or self-identify. They can also
submit their own story, allowing the campaign to
perpetuate itself.
Foldout 3 has a representation of one of these
miscellaneous stories.
Foldout 4 offers a quiz to test knowledge on the
site. It allows those unfamiliar with certain causes
to diagnose what they need to learn more for. For
the at risk person, it could represent a chance to
identify their situation and take steps to mitigate.
To see the rest of the website,open the fold outs.
Homepage

21. FactsPage

22. StoriesPage

23. StoriesDetailPage

24. QuizPage