ABOUT

Talking about death isn’t easy. In 2019 Marie Curie launched an awareness campaign to open up the conversation around death and dying, to help people feel more in control over end of life choices, when the time comes. The campaign comprised a TV advert, Talkabout - an online zine with conversational content around death and dying - and these playing cards.

THE CHALLENGE
As part of their Talkabout campaign, Marie Curie wanted to create a tool to open up meaningful conversations around death and dying. It needed to help ease the subject into everyday conversations.

THE SOLUTION
Working alongside one of Marie Curie's Senior Editors, we suggested to move forward with a pack of playing cards. Through the very nature of card games, this format promotes interaction in a universally understood way, which provides an opportunity to ease the subject matter into conversation without it feeling forced. We were keen to keep a balanced variety of questions, ranging from light-hearted, ‘Describe your perfect day’, to a more sombre, ‘What would you like on your headstone’.

Within the first week, over 1,000 boxes of cards were despatched. In November 2019, actor Jim Carter promoted the cards on ‘This Morning’ and used them to talk about his own experiences of death and grief. Since its launch, the cards have been expanded and adapted to a stay-at-home edition during the COVID-19 lockdown in 2020.