Our involvement in three editions of Social Action Lab by Blanquerna (FCRI)

NOMON collaborates with the DAU Foundation in this 2019 edition

During the present 2018-19 edition, we have joined forces with the DAU Foundation, a non-profit organisation which, besides employing people with mental health issues also offers business services to companies.

The foundation was created 27 years ago following the initiative of parents who relied upon the idea that employment would improve the autonomy and living standard of their children.

The social enterprise Laboratorio Fundació DAU currently employs 83 people with mental health disorders, out of a total of 130 workers, performing packaging services and product preparation for the pharmaceutical and cosmetics industries. It also analyses and certifies batches and imports of EU medicines.

In addition, the Area of ​​ Services to People offers training and support in job searching for over 200 professionals a year. At the Foundation, they genuinely believe in the capacity of persons with mental health disorders and therefore they promote and manage resources for a stable and quality work insertion.

Design and conceptualisation of an internal communication action for Fundació DAU: Tots construïm DAU / We all build DAU

Faced with the swift growth of the foundation and the social enterprise in recent years, its management team faces the challenge of keeping all employees cohesive so that they feel more connected and to allow for a better contribution to a shared purpose. They also aim to better communicate and transmit the essence of the foundation which overtime has gradually been lost.

Given this need, NOMON conceptualised and developed an internal offline communication action with the following objectives:

remind each employee about the origins and purpose of the foundation, as well as its essence and values

the opportunity is given to each employee to share what her or she believes to be the value that best represents the foundation

jointly redefine corporate values.

The concept is based on the foundation’s own name (DAU, dice in Catalan), and its graphic representation. As an analogy, we have depicted and used a box (as in packaging), since it is one of the main activities of the social enterprise, which requires the participation of the whole team, and that we designed modular and stackable.

The result is a piece of communication that accomplishes a dual function: it firstly communicates the action to the internal team, whilst becoming the engaging element of the action itself, helping to visualise the main values.

On the front of the communication piece we find the information and the call to action while, on the back, we find a die cut with which you can build a dice, in which each of the facets represents one of the values that currently define the foundation.

Once the dice is assembled, each professional can take it to a multipurpose room open to all employees, where they put together an ephemeral and cooperative construction by placing their own element highlighting the value facet which they consider best represents them.

By doing so, after the final photo, they would all be able to visualise which values are actually those the team believes represent the foundation best, and they would collaboratively redefine them.

Besides, we also wanted this piece of communication to be the basis for the development of other materials, such as, for example, a welcome pack allowing new employees to get to know the essence of the foundation up from the start.

With the design of these elements, we have also seized the opportunity to rethink the branding of the foundation (without modifying its identity) endowing it with a more optimistic and energetic vibe, since we considered it better suits their current needs and reality.

Our first collaboration with the LAB in 2017: Salut Mental Catalunya

On the first year, we took on the challenge of developing a graphic awareness campaign for Salut Mental Catalunya (SMC), an extremely intricate entity, because of the number of organisations it comprises and also because of the context in which it commonly works: the well-being of people with mental health problems, along with that of families and friends.

The objective has mainly been to communicate the need for accompaniment that these persons have when they go through their episodes, the need to avoid social isolation, enhance their autonomy and improve their relations. In doing so, hopefully also ultimately achieve financial support for the entity.

To do this, we planned a series of internal meetings and work sessions so that the whole team would work together to achieve these goals in which we shared all materials, feedbacks, questions and comments.

The NOMON DESIGN team then put together the slogan that would act as the global concept for the entire campaign: “De vegades, perdo el nord. Però si m’ajudes, m’orientaré de nou.” / Sometimes I lose sight of my North Star but if you help me, I can find it back again.)

This communication campaign was also aimed at making the entire population aware of the high probability that we all have to suffer from an episode of mental disorder at some point of our lives (i.e. 1 in 4) and emphasise the fact that the suffering is only temporary and that, with a little help from all, we can get through it and redirect our lives again.

And in 2018: our collaboration with Acció Social Escola Pia

Following our success with our first collaboration with SMC, last year we decided to once again volunteer applying as a partner agency.

On the occasion of the 2018 edition of the LAB, we collaborated with Acció Social Escola Pia by designing a communication piece for one of their projects.

We followed their briefing which intended to attract their audiences to join in during the participatory day in which the organisation showcased all the projects that are part of their social action plan, and which also aimed to stimulate the collaboration and participation of audiences. In addition, a solidary race was organised that day.

We came up with the design of a refreshing and fun poster using illustrations based on the idea that the sum of many grains of sand, i.e. actions, creates new opportunities, as an analogy of how the social action projects are followed through by the organisation.

We really enjoyed the experience of these past editions of the LAB and loved the close relationship that ensued since both with SMC and Acció Social Escola Pia. Internally we also valued the fact that the entire NOMON team could work together on a single project.

NOMON joins the Specialization Diploma in Communication and Marketing in Social Action

Lab d’Acció Social Blanquerna is a pioneering programme giving out professional specialisation diplomas in order to qualify staff from social organisations in communication and marketing and so enable them to achieve maximum economic sustainability on their own accord.

It was conceived in a “Lab” laboratory format, functioning in such a way that the knowledge of marketing and communication is achieved through experience, working on the development of a real case projects, involving a social organisation, ideally the same one that the student is collaborating with during the course. The Lab format enables a better integration between theory and practice, working as a team, with the help of role-playing games and simulations, work commissions with experts, exchange of ideas with experts, etc.

By the time we finished the presentation of our proposal for the DAU Foundation on June 20th, we had already started discussing our collaboration for the next edition of the LAB. For the entire NOMON DESIGN team this yearly collaboration is also an opportunity to take a break from our daily work and being able to help these organisations do what we do best and what, by the way, we are passionate about: conceptualising, designing and communicating.