charity: water Book

Opportunity

charity: water is a nonprofit on a mission to bring clean water to everyone, everywhere. When they wrote their first and only book, Thirst, they engaged us to help them design the cover and concept experiences that would connect new audiences with their cause.

Approach

The stakes were incredibly high with celebrities and influencers all over the world connected to the work. We knew we had one shot at launching a book for charity: water and we needed to go big. The book had the potential to get thousands of new people motivated and invested in the global cause of clean water.

Our team got to work concepting creative solutions that would get people’s attention because we knew that on average you have only three seconds to make an impression with a book. With our reputation to push past perceived limits, we worked with large scale printers and publishers to come up with three concepts.

The first was a specialty book sent to 1,000 influencers invested in charity: water. We chose to print the book cover in hydrochromic ink, which is ink that only appears once it comes in contact with water. People would need to literally add water to the cover of their book to see what the book was. It was playful, engaging and revealing. And it was an experience that created intrigue and excitement, which is exactly what we wanted our influencers to be feeling.

The second was a collector’s edition that mirrored their iconic yellow jerry can. We customized the gilding to match so that everything was completely yellow. We designed custom packaging options so that it would stand out in the midst of the humdrum of typical mail.

Lastly, we worked with focus groups, helped with subtitles, and designed a clean, bold book cover for the masses which is what hit shelves across the globe.

Result

The book is a New York Times bestseller. We got to make something that created more awareness and action for the global water crisis, so we’d say that’s a pretty good day at work.