Illustrated Heads Have the Consent Conversation in Irish Department of Justice Campaign

​Back in September, Javelin buddies Clayton Homer and Des Kavanagh were faced with a difficult task - presenting the issue of consent in sexual relationships to the Irish public. Their solution to this sensitive and debated subject was to normalise simple, everyday conversations around consent and add a surprising visual twist. And since 'surprising visual twist' is pretty much our middle name(s), it was no surprise when they asked Piranha Bar to step in and help out with the campaign.

First order of business: convert a bunch of quotation marks - now being used as the logo signifier for consent 'conversation' - into illustrated heads that could be used in OOH, TV and VOD. Many iterations later, we had a design and illustration language we could use to create 10 different characters to be seen on posters, beer mats, bus shelters and of course a 30 sec campaign launch film.

Shot over the course of a day, director Gavin Kelly brought the action together with a vérité eye, with hand held cameras capturing snippets of consent conversation between normal people with very abnormal heads. Fetching swimming caps were worn by the cast, enabling the careful 3D tracking of their head movement for subsequent compositing of the giant blocky cardboard heads. The roto department worked overtime, painting out the real heads so the new ones could sit into the picture believably. 360 HDRI image captures ensured the heads were lit realistically by their environment and compositing and grading took care of the rest.

The result is a surreal and unexpected world where quotation mark people interact and converse, establishing the quote mark as a shorthand for 'have the conversation' and driving cut through visual appeal for an audience weary of didactic public messaging.​