Renowned Canadian graphic designer Derwyn Goodall’s latest projects, “Let’s Make 2023 Extraordinary!” and “Reframe Climate Awareness“, earned accolades in the Graphis Poster Awards 2024. These self-initiated works showcase Derwyn’s mastery of poster design and marrying social themes with innovative design. “Let’s Make 2023 Extraordinary!” radiates positivity and hope through vibrant colors and spirited fonts, while his bold angular graphics and dynamic typography in “Reframe Climate Awareness” powerfully address climate change. These posters highlight Derwyn’s creativity and his commitment to using design as a tool for social change, setting the stage for his inspiring and thought-provoking story below.
By: Derwyn Goodall
Let’s make 2023 extraordinary by celebrating: hope, kindness, inclusiveness, respect, understanding, compassion, selflessness, family, diversity, tolerance, optimism, healing, friendship, empathy, fearlessness, passion, giving, moving forward, truth, caring, spirit, optimism…
For my 2023 New Year’s poster, I wanted to focus on a morally aspirational message. Not social prestige or material success.
Being a “good” person is a complex topic, since each individual may have a different idea of what this looks like. In general, however, empathy, consideration, and accountability are broadly associated with being a good person across many cultures and belief systems. To be selfless and care about others Overall, I wanted the visual approach to echo and reinforce the message, one of optimism and positive energy. The large 23 literally bursts off the page. Rich, saturated colors and quirky font choices contribute to the poster’s visual energy.
Climate change awareness is defined as the concern about and belief in the issue of climate change. Strangely enough, some people have climate change awareness as well as people who reject climate change.
And it is affecting our world today! While we still have time to limit the worst impact, below are several important reasons why we should all care about climate change.
Climate change will mean big changes for animals around the world. We must care about how a changing climate will make it harder for them to find food, disrupt their habitats, and threaten their very existence.
Warmer air and ocean temperatures cause coral bleaching, where corals lose their color and may die. Ocean acidification—from increased CO2 in the atmosphere—compounds the problem.
Two out of every three people worldwide live in regions of severe water scarcity. Even a small increase in global temperatures will destabilize the water cycle and will make water scarcity much worse. Climate change affects rainfall patterns, where drought and flooding will be more common and more intense.
More frequent and intense extreme weather is a documented result of our greenhouse gas emissions.
Irreplaceable and often described as ‘the world’s lungs,’, rainforests are some of the most precious habitats on the planet. Over one-third of the Amazon rainforest is already threatened by climate change.
With increasing carbon emissions, we face compromised air quality. This affects human health, where air pollution can lead to asthma, heart, and lung disease.
For my poster design, I used bold graphics, bit-mapped imagery, dynamic typography, and color to graphically suggest that climate change is adversely affecting our planet. The color scheme is unnatural, an enlarged halftone dot pattern distorts the imagery, sharp, angular shapes are not calming and the typographic style is disruptive.
I am a Canadian graphic designer and educator living in Toronto. Professionally, I am an accredited creative director and designer (RGD) with 35 years of high-profile, award-winning design and 20 years of post-secondary teaching experience.
Goodall Integrated Design is a full-service, strategic branding and design studio. We embrace an ideas-driven design process, meaningful collaboration, and rigorous attention to craft. We specialize in branding, corporate identity programs, print, packaging, environmental design, signage, wayfinding, and interactive experiences. In dozens of categories: science and tech, finance, arts and culture, and government. My job is to help clients tell the world who they are and why they’re important—why they matter. Not just to their target audiences—but to real people. I take complicated ideas and make them understandable. I then make them memorable, so they resonate.
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