In late 2024, the Ministry of Education were reviewing school bus routes. By December, according to Rural News NZ, 290 of the 1,990 school bus routes had been reviewed. Of those, 38 had been or will be cancelled. The Labour Party started an awareness and protest campaign asking the Government to reverse these decisions as they would have devastating consequences on rural schools and communities.
For this campaign design, one of my prompts was a nostalgic one: the Magic School Bus. I was asked to come up with something colourful, fun, and maybe in watercolours. Inspired by this, I created an illustration of little kiwis boarding a bright Labour Red school bus, with watercolour textures in the background, and a bright fun font.
The final design was used on posters, social media, and most prominently on A5 postcards, which were delivered to affected schools. Students wrote letters to Erica Stanford (the Minister of Education) on the backs of these cards asking her to change her mind about their cancellations.