#CreateWelcome — integrated billboard, motion and digital campaign
An award-recognised integrated campaign created for MDA Ltd (now Multicultural Australia) in partnership with goa billboards, inviting Queenslanders to share messages of welcome for refugees and people seeking asylum. The campaign combined digital billboards, social media, public activations and a campaign microsite into one connected public participation system — and was named a 2016 BADC Finalist.
Overview
#CreateWelcome was a large-scale integrated digital and outdoor campaign created for MDA Ltd — one of Queensland's leading multicultural and settlement organisations — in partnership with goa billboards, one of Queensland's major outdoor advertising networks. The campaign invited the public to create and share their own messages of welcome for refugees and people seeking asylum, then amplified selected messages through digital billboards, social media and public event activations.
The campaign worked across an unusually broad set of channels for a single brief — digital billboards, Instagram, social booths at community and sporting events, a campaign microsite, an ordering mechanic for physical WelcomeKits, and motion graphics. LovelyPixel's contribution sat across the digital execution layer: front-end design, digital production, development and back-end functionality, supported by the brand-system design that held all of it together.
The brief and the challenge
The brief was to do something harder than awareness — change the tone of public conversation around refugees and asylum seekers by giving everyday people an easy, visual, shareable way to show support. The same identity had to do four very different jobs at once: read at 90 km/h on a digital billboard, feel warm and shareable on Instagram, perform on a campaign microsite, and survive being adapted by community participants at social booth activations.
It also had to feel inviting rather than political. The subject matter was serious; the interaction had to be simple and positive. And it had to work technically — there was a real participation system underneath the creative, with WelcomeKit ordering, social submission flow and content moving from social into outdoor.
The approach
The work was led by a single calm visual idea — "create welcome" as an action, not a slogan — and applied that idea consistently across every format. Type choices were warm but quiet. Colour was used sparingly. Motion graphics built on the same restrained system rather than introducing new visual languages per channel.
On the digital side, the campaign microsite acted as the participation hub — explaining the movement, supporting WelcomeKit ordering, and connecting online activity (social submissions, hashtag participation) with offline activations (event booths, billboard amplification). The back-end supported the campaign's participation mechanics so the experience didn't collapse the moment usage scaled up.
- Brand development — name treatment, type system and tonal direction
- Billboard partnership with goa — large-format design at production-ready specs
- Motion graphics for digital and social distribution
- Campaign microsite + WelcomeKit ordering mechanic (front-end and back-end)
- Infographic and explainer design supporting the campaign narrative
- Social booth activations and event-based content amplification flow
Project gallery
Awards and recognition
The campaign was named a finalist across two categories at the Brisbane Advertising and Design Club (BADC) awards — independent recognition from peers in the local design and advertising industry. BADC is one of the few credible local credentials for campaign work that holds together as a system rather than as a clever one-off.
By mid-May 2016 the campaign had already reached more than a million people across its early rollout. MDA's later 20-year retrospective recorded 3.3 million social media hits over the life of the campaign — strong evidence that the participation mechanic worked at scale.
Why this matters as a credibility signal
Most brand campaigns are easy to look at and hard to evaluate. The BADC finalist credential is one external anchor. The other is to look at how the system performed across formats — billboard, motion, web, infographic — without losing identity. That's the same test we apply to every commercial brand identity and graphic design project: does the system survive being stretched across channels, or does each application need to start over?
The discipline used here — one calm visual idea, applied with restraint — is the same one we bring to commercial work on logo design, Brisbane brand identity design and print collateral. The brief changes; the approach doesn't.
Outcome
The campaign achieved strong public visibility and engagement, with selected community-created messages amplified across goa's digital billboard network and the campaign hashtag reaching well into seven figures over the life of the activity. The campaign also extended beyond its launch period — La Boite Theatre Company later referenced the #CreateWelcome page as a resource in an education program designed to change the conversation around refugees and asylum seekers.
For LovelyPixel, the project remains a strong example of work that combines design, digital production, campaign technology and social impact communication in one delivery.
Skills and capability
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Tell us the brief — billboard, brochure, signage, motion or a complete identity rollout. We'll suggest the simplest path that still does the work justice.