Story

Empowering our disabled community through UAL's first Disability History Month campaign design

Written byLynn Yang, Junior Designer and Emily Sear, Senior Designer, UAL Creative
Published date 01 March 2025

Disability History Month runs from 14 November to 20 December 2024. This was UAL's first time running this campaign. The aim of the campaign month was to celebrate and raise awareness of our disabled community to help students and staff feel included, valued and recognised. It was also an opportunity to challenge all students, colleagues and peers to consider how we might continuously improve our working environment for all.

The brief

We were tasked with creating a visual identity that captures the themes and messages of Disability History Month 2024. We are aligning the campaign with the UK’s official theme for the year - ‘Disability Livelihood and Employment’.

This was the first time UAL had officially marked Disability History Month so it was really important that the campaign was visible, accessible and that disabled staff felt empowered to contribute to the look and feel of the campaign. As always, we started with a brilliant brainstorm session with the Creative team and I'm really happy with the end result that they delivered. They understood the brief completely, took initiative, and were a pleasure to work with. I always look forward to working with the Creative team and I think the Co-Chairs of the Disabled and Neurodiverse Staff Network really enjoyed the experience too.

— Joe O'Brien (he/him), Staff Communications and Engagement Executive, Internal Communications Staff and Students

The design process

At UAL, we embrace the social model of disability to support our students and colleagues. Individuals are not disabled by their differences but by the barriers in the world around them. This principle, paired with this year’s theme ‘Disability Livelihood and Employment’ inspired our creative process.

Our aim was to have a celebratory tone while raising awareness of the disabled community and fostering inclusion, value, and recognition among students and staff. Looking into data from our communication plan, we discovered that 17% of students and 15% of staff identify as disabled. On a global scale, 15% of the world’s population lives with disabilities. These statistics shaped the foundation of our visual identity.

To highlight the 15% from the dataset, we created 15 unique shapes symbolising the diversity within our disability community. These shapes represent the idea of reshaping the world and celebrate the community's richness and individuality. Using hand-cut paper techniques, we added a tactile, crafted element to our digital assets, emphasising both creativity and authenticity.

The colour purple holds significant symbolism because purple is often associated with dignity, respect, and empowerment, making it an ideal choice to represent the observance. The colour purple also conveys a sense of unity and solidarity, reminding us of the importance of celebrating and supporting our disabled community.

Working on the Disability History Month campaign design was a great chance to get involved with UAL's Disability Service team. It was an important journey for us designers, some of who are in the Disabled and Neurodiverse network, to educate ourselves more about the spectrum of peoples’ lived experiences. Additionally, it was an opportunity to double down on the importance of the digital accessibility regulations we follow as an organisation in our work and practice highlighting our ambitions to always press for progress and design accessibility into our processes from the start.

Final deliverables included: printed posters and postcards; animated and static digital screens; internal and external website assets and animated social media assets.

A work-in-progress visual representing the crafting of the Disability history month campaign visuals. A collection of diverse shapes crafted from dark purple paper are scattered across a light purple background — **Disability History Month campaign 2024 | Campaign design direction: Creative, UAL**

Dark purple shapes on a light purple background. There are eight shapes in total, organised in two neat rows. — **Disability History Month campaign 2024 | Campaign design direction: Creative, UAL**

Dark purple shapes on a light purple background. There are five shapes in total, 4 smaller shapes are arranged in two short rows on the left. On the right is one large shape. It looks as if the large shapes is directing, teaching or talking to the four smaller shapes. — **Disability History Month campaign 2024 | Campaign design direction: Creative, UAL**

Dark purple shapes on a light purple background. There are two shapes here, of equal size. They look like they are having a conversation with each other or keeping each other company. — **Disability History Month campaign 2024 | Campaign design direction: Creative, UAL**

Campaign in numbers

7.9% of all clicks in The Big Picture staff newsletter were on Disability History Month content
Instagram impressions during the campaign: 1.9M (610K is the industry norm)
Canvas stories published using Creative assets: 11
An event with Guide Dogs, promoted using campaign creative, generated a foster parent for a puppy-in-training.

The design team worked closely with the Disabled and Neurodiverse Staff Network to create a design which reflects the diversity of our disabled staff and student community, while also being celebratory and immediately recognisable.

— Carys Kennedy, Educational Developer Reward and Recognition, Academic Practice. Member of the Disabled and Neurodiverse Staff Network

Disability History Month campaign poster, 2024 | Campaign design direction: Creative, UAL
Disability History Month campaign postcard, 2024 | Campaign design direction: Creative, UAL
Disability History Month campaign digital screen, 2024 | Campaign design direction: Creative, UAL
Disability History Month campaign Instagram stories, 2024 | Campaign design direction: Creative, UAL
Disability History Month campaign digital screen, 2024 | Campaign design direction: Creative, UAL

Meet the team

About UAL Creative

UAL Creative is University of the Arts London’s in-house design studio.

Since 2019 we have been building a team including alumni, recent graduates and occasionally students. We are a group of multi-disciplinary designers—freelance and permanent, Junior to Senior. Typically, you'll find the team working on: design strategy, design systems and campaign design including print, digital and animation for teams and projects across the University.

We are within the Communications Department in the Social Purpose Group and based at the High Holborn campus. We also work with designers through UAL Arts Temps, our university recruitment agency and jobs board, giving our students and alumni the opportunity to work freelance within our team.

Creative team

Asia Domagalska she/her/hers, Freelance Junior Designer, 2022 BA Graphic Media Design, London College of Communication, UAL

Emily Sear she/her/hers, Senior Designer, 2012 BA Graphic Design, University of Hertfordshire

Lily Forbes she/her/hers, Midweight Designer, 2020 BA Graphic Design Communication, Chelsea College of Arts, UAL

Lynn Yang she/her/hers, Junior Designer, 2022 BA Graphic Communication Design, Central Saint Martins, UAL

Stephanie Feather she/her/hers, Head of Creative, 2008 BA Graphic Design, Central Saint Martins, UAL

Collaborators

Communications

Joe O'Brien, Staff Communications and Engagement Executive

Disabled and Neurodiverse Staff Network (DSN)

Carys Kennedy, Educational Developer Reward and Recognition, Academic Practice

Wendy Norford, Internal Business Consultant, Academic Enterprise