Designing the Logo for the ‘Free Jesús’ Campaign

Jesús Armas is a Venezuelan activist, Obama Foundation Scholar, and McCain Global Leader who is currently under unlawful detention for his human rights work. Read the statements of the Obama Foundation and the McCain Institute.

The Obama Leaders Network and Jesús’s friends and family are currently mobilising for his immediate release. Please follow the news from the official campaign on the website and on Instagram.

Over the holidays, I designed the logo for his campaign — a small contribution to the big efforts of everyone else. Here is a quick note on the design process:

As with Hong Hoang‘s campaign, the goal was to humanise Jesús to provide a three dimensional glimpse into him as a person beyond his activism. After collaborative meetings hosted by the Leaders Network, I learned that Jesús loves rock and roll music, and the universal hand gesture with the index and pinky fingers sticking out came to my mind.

I had an exchange with Liangyi Chang whom I worked with on the Free Hong logo, and we were debating between whether the thumb should stick out or not as we have seen rock fans use both though the first image is the actual symbol for rock and roll. The second image also means ‘I love you’ in American Sign Language, and so I stuck with the first hand. My third and fourth fingers kind of form a heart anyway, so love was not lost.

I thought of Jesús going to rock concerts with his friends and imagined his hand sticking out with this gesture wrapped in paper wristbands typical of concerts and festivals, and substituted this with barbed wire as a symbol of his activism.

When I showed this to the team, one of Jesús’s fellow scholars sent a photo of Jesús doing this with both hands, so I took it as a serendipitous sign that this was the direction to go.

A few exchanges with the team about Pantone colours…