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Information Commissioner’s Office
Awareness campaign




Created while working as a designer at Squad


Students are more vulnerable than most when it comes to identity theft. The ICO needed a campaign that both raised awareness and increased resilience. 

I helped create the fictitious character Alex Davies: a hapless student who has been careless with his personal information, allowing other people to do all sorts with it.

I designed a series of posters—with pop-out masks— that were installed across campuses nationwide; encouraging students to ‘steal’ Alex’s identity. A Facebook page was created so they could post content of themselves getting up to no good whilst masquerading as ‘The Real Alex Davies’. The page became a visual metaphor of the threat of identity theft. 






The fact that the information was being shared by their peers, as opposed to coming from ‘the powers that be’, gave the campaign added relevance and potency.

I designed ID-cards, badges and shelf-wobblers, as well as beer mats which revealed Alex’s mobile phone number (if you called the number, you were greeted by a voicemail from a distraught Alex, asking if you had any information on the whereabouts of his identity, and what was being done with it).







Here’s a snapshot of some of the content created by the students:










Handing creative control to the student community allowed the idea to flourish, and it was a truly rewarding projecy to be involved with.

© 2020. Mr Matt Davis  •  Made in Leeds, UK