Fighting the climate journalism crisis

Global media climate coverage is down 38% since 2021, driven partly by billionaire-backed outlets invested in burning fossil fuels. The Guardian's independence lets it fight to keep climate issues in the headlines, but it costs. This year's climate appeal addressed this specific threat, raising money to keep the climate crisis in the headlines.

And to do this the design had to make the climate journalism crisis feel as urgent as the climate crisis itself.

A real issue needs design craft that feels real

Like the planet, climate journalism will be saved by people. This insight directed OLIVER's in-house designer to make everything by hand. Each collage visualised an aspect of the climate crisis e.g. a businessman dousing the planet in oil with every element crafted, printed, torn or cut by hand before being photographed under studio lighting. A mix of black-and-white and colour created visual tension, while the Guardian Titlepiece font, set large and in red, functioned as another collage layer.

The handmade approach gave the campaign an authenticity that digital or AI imagery couldn't, communicating that real people created this crisis, and real people can stop it.

Design that breaks records

Overall, 90 handcrafted assets ran across print, digital, social and email, built collaboratively with the Guardian team. The campaign became the Guardian's best-performing supporter campaign on record: £4.89m LTV3 raised, £1.1m from email alone (72% up year on year), and 59,500 acts of support, beating target by nearly 50%.