New Work: aTeam Ministries' Heart2HeART Gala

The past five or six months I've had the privilege to work with aTeam Ministries, a local organization committed to supporting pediatric cancer patients and their families. aTeam offers seven programs that serve the emotional, financial, and spiritual needs of these families, and they've grown exponentially since 2009 when the organization was founded, in part to their primary annual fundraiser, the Heart2HeART Gala. It's been such a pleasure to work with the people there, not to mention the fact that they all went to Auburn, so I feel like I've known them for years!

The concept of Heart2HeART was actually developed by Jonna Chizik, wife of Coach Gene Chizik. Each year aTeam pairs eight to ten pediatric cancer patients with eight to ten professional artists. Each pair has an art workshop and produces two pieces of art: the child's piece is done in the style of the artist, and the artist's piece is inspired by the child. All the art, along with other donated items and packages, etc, are auctioned off at the Heart2HeART Gala. 

Save the Date postcards

This year I was able to work with aTeam to design the look of the event campaign. My client wanted to do something vibrant and lively that felt current and could be versatile for application in the coming years, as well. I knew I wanted to hinge the look on the idea of collaboration found in concept of Heart2HeART, so I used interlocking shapes and two typefaces with a lot of personality to represent the idea of each voice in the artist/child pairing. I also liked the reference to boxes/squares of art hanging on a wall. The shapes lent themselves well to featuring snippets of the artwork and were very adaptable to different layout ideas.

Invitation (front and back), A7 Envelope, reply card and envelope

All total for the campaign we produced a save the date, an invitation set, a reminder postcard, a 36-page program with donation card, art posters, art display signage, nametags, and various other signage for the venue. It was quite an undertaking, and I had the pleasure to work with very talented people to pull everything together. Thanks to Jenny Riddle for the copywriting, Jason Wallis for the headshots and art photos, Heather Durham for the family photo, and Communication Arts for the printing!

The program was the most fun. I love the rhythm of multi-page design and this project was so gratifying anyway because of the fun creative direction and the purpose of aTeam and the event. We had the program wear many hats, including that of bidder (the bid numbers were printed on the back), informant (lots of info on aTeam programs and backstory) and philanthropist (donation cards were tipped into the inside back cover). All the artists and art were featured and described here as well, with bios of the artists and kids.

As I mentioned earlier, there was various signage for the venue. Here are a few shots from the event. 

Congratulations to aTeam for such a great turnout at Heart2HeART!

If you'd like to see more of my design work, fly on over to sarahrobinsdesign.com!