Spreading Our Net is a community-based initiative by Unlimited Potential. It tackles loneliness by strengthening everyday social connections. Instead of creating new services, it works with people and places already in neighbourhoods – like local shops, faith groups, neighbours and delivery workers. By empowering trusted “connectors,” it helps people who feel lonely find simple ways to join in, make friends and feel valued. We worked collaboratively with Unlimited Potential to develop the right visual language to communicate their needs, supported by a visual identity including: icons, illustrations, print assets and animation.
The creative work needed to highlight the problem, demonstrate the solution and then inspire action. It also had to be flexible to be used across a range of social media platforms and speak to different stakeholders including: public service commissioners and council, healthcare professionals, local business, residents and connectors. The brief was to create short, engaging animation and content communicated the impact that Spreading Our Net could have on significantly reducing loneliness across Greater Manchester. The focus was on the community-driven approach to tackling loneliness by strengthening social networks.
The project required deep understanding, asking lots of questions, and really getting to the core of what Spreading Our Net was designed to achieve. We worked collaboratively to ensure the concept was clear to present to all stakeholders.
We listened to the objectives of the project and worked on how to translate this important message in an engaging, impactful way. After exploring ideas, we found our creative route in nature through the idea of mycelium – which transfers information between trees. This represented connection, the core of the message of the project, which became the framework we used to develop the final creative. We designed the identity inspired by the net of dots and incorporated this further.
We then added animation to bring the story to life. This process involved recording the voice-over for the animation with the client. Each decision was carefully considered to ensure we were moving closer to achieving their mission of strengthening positive human connections through social networks between existing community assets.
“Many thanks from everyone at Unlimited Potential to everyone at Carbon Creative who contributed to the design and production of the promotional assets for Spreading Our Net – including visual identity, icons, illustrations, social media templates, animation, brochure, leaflet, presentation template and pop-up stand. We appreciate all of the time, thought and skill that has gone into these.”
Chris – Unlimited Potential