40 Years of Growing Kinder

October is National Bullying Prevention Month, and when I first took on the role as Creative Manager at the Committee for Children in 2018, I was tasked with bringing a campaign to life that helped parents and educators communicate with kids about how to recognize, report, and refuse bullying. Working with the creative genius of my Art Director, Kyle Hunter, we combined our love of comics and character development to create an all new super-hero to help spread the word of empathy and compassion towards others. Thus, Captain Compassion was born and so was my favorite campaign of my professional career.

​​

The campaign follows the story of Chris Kind as he witnesses bullying scenarios between school peers through a series of weekly comic strips. As he struggles to figure out how he can make a difference, he turns to his cosmic friend, Captain Compassion, for guidance. Captain Compassion helps Chris discover his bystander power, and empowers him to help recognize, refuse, and report the bullying scenarios he witnesses. After Chris masters his new skills, Captain Compassion bestows him with some of her cosmic powers and he dawns the persona of Kid Kinder.
 

The challenge of the campaign was the short timeline of only two months to fully develop the characters, story, and overwhelming number of deliverables; including, but not limited to:

• 5 comic strips to be launched one-per-week throughout the month of October

• Character and story development

• Posters that would be pasted throughout the cities of Seattle, Houston, Chicago, and Boston

• Social media posts that showcase infographics for statistics related to bullying

• A responsive micro-site to showcase the campaign on cfchildren.org

• Media kits to send to press representatives to gain their attention and help them share the message, if they so choose

• Create a video with celebrity spokesperson, Skai Jackson

• A campaign introduction video:

As challenging as the campaign and tight timelines may have been, Captain Compassion was so much fun! We got to bring several amazing characters to life and watch them develop as the campaign was renewed into 2019 and 2020. The end result was a website which is home to approachable, research-based tips and tactics drawn from Committee for Children’s decades of work in the field of bullying prevention. It includes engaging comics, videos, and family resources focused on providing kids and adults with the tools they need to address a range of bullying scenarios. The campaign empowers everyone to activate their bystander power to help stop bullying. Also, how often do you get to see your design accomplishments amongst the neons of Times Square?!

Check out the campaign today at CaptainCompassion.org or by listening to the podcast below: