Liberty Asia
Visual Identity, Publication, Illustration, Website
Identity, publications and digital design assets for an international nonprofit working to prevent human trafficking
Bringing Human Trafficking to Human Scale
Liberty Asia is a Hong-Kong-based organization that works behind the scenes to prevent human trafficking through technological support for NGOs, legal advocacy, and banking regulation. Rather than sensationalize or oversimplify the message through stock imagery, we traveled to several countries in Asia to photograph the context in which trafficking takes place. The design introduces visual clarity and hierarchy to break the challenge down into clear components that can be better understood and addressed.
The human context of trafficking
In our travels and through our photography and interviews, we found that the challenge of human trafficking was incredibly complex and confusing. It wasn't as sensational as depicted in the media; instead, it could be found anywhere there was poverty and a false promise of a job across the border. We met previously trafficked individuals who ranged from sex workers to underpaid or unpaid labor. We also visited nonprofits on the ground and met with young students who were being trained from an early age to recognize and reject attempts at trafficking.
A Common Visual Language
In addition to the more narrative components of the visual identity, Liberty Asia asked Isometric to create 100+ icons to help international agencies—including banks and law enforcement entities such as the FBI—identify and tackle all kinds of illegal and inhumane trafficking. Our visual research revealed that icons tend to make a problem seem generic and flat. After all, a person’s story cannot be fully represented by a statistic. We therefore sought to use the softness of the illustration style to imbue an imprint of the human hand, invoking the real lives and livelihoods that lie beyond these simple icons.
