When looking at the ethnic make up of Los Angeles and those who ride bicycles it becomes crucial to provide a bicycle educational resource in other languages other than just English. The language barrier for Los Angeles’ large portion of Spanish speaking cyclists is an issue City of Lights has long recognized.
Therefore, we worked with day laborer cyclists to create an educational tool that allows Spanish speaking cyclists and motorists to be aware of sharing the road here in Los Angeles. We were able to create a bus shelter and video PSA in Spanish that was completely driven by the day laborer cyclists. The main idea is to provide a Spanish language public service announcement that would be displayed throughout Los Angeles County, to continue our efforts of recognizing a population that exists within the bicycle culture but often goes overlooked.
The initial process was to come up with a message that would be relevant amongst the Spanish speaking community, and we thought, what better way of promoting a relevant message than working with actual Spanish speaking cyclists? In 2011, we started this campaign by organizing day laborers and facilitating meetings that allowed them to be the voice behind the message that was going to be shown throughout bus shelter ads in Los Angeles. The initial meetings consisted of developing a message that would not only speak out to cyclists but motorists as well. The guys (as we call them) ended up brainstorming 25 different, original messages with everyone’s input.
After the initial meetings of developing the messaging, we began to narrow the amount of messages to eventually come up with one. We took these final messages to three talented graphic designers who worked pro bono to make illustrations that would give a visual to the messaging. After the day laborers chose their preferred design, we then met up with the Los Angeles Department of Transportation to finalize and print the PSA. The rest is history. To learn more about the process view the video below.
Tu Familia Campaign Behind the Scenes – LACBC, REI, City of Lights from Melograna Media on Vimeo.
Not only was this project a success with the completion of the poster, but we also were able to make a video public service announcement that ties into the same message., which we hope to get distributed on major Spanish language television networks within the next year.
