Swinburne University communication design student Wade Jeffree has been awarded a Student Distinction for his project "This Is Dyslexia" at the 2010 Australian Graphic Designers Association (AGDA) National Awards. Wade's project, which portrays text the way a person with dyslexia may see it, won the "identity" category for the innovative use of a logo or symbol.
The project was created in response to a brief issued by the International Society of Typographic Design (ISTD) - which challenged designers to identify facts of an imbalance and interpret them in an expressive and informative way.
Wade said that he chose to represent dyslexic symptoms because he believed his design could play a role in helping to spread awareness of the learning disorder. His key design solution came after he saw some examples of dyslexic handwriting where letters and numbers were regularly interchanged for one another.
"I tried to emulate the dyslexic symptoms in a brand architecture that would communicate the subject to a wider audience," he said. "I believe there is a real lack of media attention on the topic and that drove me to make the project feasible in a real world context."
The AGDA awards, which have been a barometer for creative excellence since 1992, honour design innovation in culture and business.