Fair Seas and Wexford-based design agency Lands have been recognised at the Institute of Designers in Ireland (IDI) 2023 Awards at the RDS. The annual awards showcase the talents of designers and collaborators across Ireland as well as Irish designers abroad. Lands won the Design For Good award for its work with the coalition of leading environmental non-governmental organisations and networks. Fair Seas started working with Lands in early 2022 when it launched its campaign for strong and ambitious Marine Protected Areas (MPA) legislation to protect, conserve and restore Ireland’s marine environment.
The work included strategy, naming identity design and a range of communication pieces; a scientific report presenting 16 Areas of Interest for MPA designation, a series of infographic posters, a white paper on forthcoming legislation and a report on sustainably financing Ireland’s MPA network, together with various printed and digital promotional assets.
The judges described the campaign as; “A beautiful outcome with clear consideration for the depth of information needed to be communicated and how to achieve this in an accessible way.”
Aoife O’Mahony, Campaign Manager with Fair Seas said, “It is an honour for the Fair Seas campaign to receive such a high calibre national design award. We set Brian Byrne from Lands the challenge of capturing the energy of our campaign to build a movement of ocean stewardship across Ireland. He was able to express our scientific approach, expertise and collective spirit throughout, with a nod to Ireland’s marine heritage. Our first major publication was ‘Revitalising Our Seas, identifying areas of interest for Marine Protected Area designation’ and Brian succeeded in turning a document with numerous maps, charts and graphs in each section into an accessible report while maintaining its scientific integrity. This was the first of its kind report highlighting where Marine Protected Areas could be located to conserve and restore our ocean.”
Brian Bryne, owner of Lands Design Studio added, “Fair Seas do amazing work, and I’m incredibly proud to have won the award working with them. It’s a huge team effort, you can’t produce good design without great clients, and the team gave me the space and freedom to create this type of work, which we can call award-winning work now.”
Fair Seas is campaigning for strong and ambitious Marine Protected Areas (MPA) legislation to be published as soon as possible. The group wants to see mandatory targets committing to effectively protecting 30% of the seas around Ireland by 2030 with 10% strictly protected. Fair Seas is calling for stakeholder engagement at every stage of the MPA designation with clear delivery timeframes as well as a robust management framework which clearly defines the varying degrees of site protection to ensure MPAs deliver for nature.
For more information about Fair Seas visit https://fairseas.ie/
