ABOUT

Ashford Borough Council asked HH Creative to get involved with their Smoke-free Play Areas project as part of the Kent Quit Scheme. The brief was to design signage that would discourage people from smoking in children’s play areas, in and around the Ashford area.

As the council is currently unable to enforce against smoking in children’s playgrounds,
we had to be sensitive to the tone of wording that was used when communicating with the smokers – it had to be polite and positive.

After various public consultations, trialling various messages and graphic treatments, our response was to brand the play areas as ‘Kids’ Crusades’ – a healthier place to play” encouraging people to remember that play areas should be healthy places for children.

To help reinforce this message, we used the idea of children asking grown-ups not to smoke near them — as their crusade to keep their play areas healthy and smoke-free — and illustrated male and female child knights, in suits of armour, holding swords and shields that communicated the anti smoking message
The fairytale theme was expanded upon with the addition of six themed games, which were located at the play areas where the bespoke signage was positioned.

This would spark the children’s imagination with creative play whilst subtly promoting other positive health messages. Each separate board, featuring characters such as the Captain Greedy Guts, Fizzy Wizard and Lazy Lady Dolittle, displays the name and rules of the game along with an illustration of the inspirational character.

The final designs feature bright and friendly images of kids dressed as cheerful knights. The result is a series of images and games that encourage children and adults to keep fighting the battle against smoking in public play areas.