In the Summer of 2008, at the height of California’s controversial same-sex marriage initiative, New America Media launched a public education campaign to appear in ethnic media throughout California. I was hired as a freelance art and creative director to handle the $2 million campaign. I put together a creative team of myself, a copywriter and a photographer. The concept I came up with I called “Straight Story”: straight family members tell why they support their gay family member’s marriage. The photographer and writer where sent to each family—based on their true story, we created each ad. We rolled out three new ads a week for 4 weeks. The ads where translated into 6 languages and ran in over 100 publications.
The campaign was awarded Gold in Public Policy Communications from the Council on Foundations:”This is a powerful, moving and brilliant campaign. Well done!”