SELECTED WORK / 04
Behind every mask
was a person.
A public-health campaign built around the people caring for our community during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Make the crisis
personal.
Our hospital was overwhelmed. Healthcare workers were caring for seriously ill patients day after day, and the toll extended well beyond the walls of the hospital.
Columbus Regional Health needed to communicate the seriousness of the pandemic to the community it served. But statistics and institutional messages could only tell part of the story.
We wanted people to see the individuals behind the hospital’s pleas for help: healthcare workers with families, interests, responsibilities and lives outside their jobs.
The campaign put those people at the center of the message, combining personal details with accounts of what they were experiencing while caring for patients.
THE CREATIVE APPROACH
Not a hospital.
Not a statistic.
A person.
The photographs needed to feel direct and personal. Black-and-white portraits, dark backgrounds and an uncluttered composition kept the focus on the healthcare worker looking back at the viewer.
The photography
carried the message.
My primary contribution was the portrait photography. I also designed the template for the advertisement series and collaborated with the Marketing team on the messaging.
Portrait photography
Photographed healthcare workers against a consistent dark background, exploring poses, expressions and compositions that could support each person’s story.
Campaign template
Designed a repeatable advertisement layout combining the portraits, individual stories, campaign headlines and public-health messaging.
Messaging collaboration
Worked with the Marketing team to connect each healthcare worker’s personal experience with the campaign’s appeal to the community.
FROM THE PHOTO SHOOT
Finding the frame.
A contact sheet from one of the portrait sessions. Small changes in posture, expression and camera angle helped shape the final campaign images.
03 / THE FINISHED CAMPAIGN
Three people.
Three stories.
One plea.
Each advertisement introduced a healthcare worker as an individual before describing the experience of caring for patients during the pandemic. The shared visual treatment connected the stories into a recognizable campaign.
01 / CAITLYN
Caitlyn isn’t
laughing.
The campaign introduced Caitlyn through details about her life outside work, then connected her story to the strain of caring for COVID-19 patients in the Emergency Department.
02 / TREVOR
Trevor is a
team player.
Trevor’s story focused on the emotional and physical demands of caring for patients in an urgent-care setting, and the importance of the colleagues who supported one another.
03 / JOEY
Joey is
heartbroken.
Joey’s advertisement described the emotional weight of caring for patients over days, weeks or months, and the grief of losing people he had come to know.
04 / THE OUTCOME
Some messages
matter even when
you can’t measure
their impact.
This wasn’t a campaign with a simple conversion metric. We couldn’t know how many minds the advertisements changed.
What we created was a way for healthcare workers to speak directly to their community, not only as medical professionals, but as people.
The photographs and personal stories gave the hospital’s public-health message a human face at a time when that message urgently needed to be heard.