Fire in the Foothills

Briagolong, where I live, is a small bushfire-prone town in Gippsland, Australia.

We received funding and support to run several programs to increase the local knowledge of bushfire risk. These included running a community lunch to talk about bushfire risk, encouraging residents to make short films to highlight areas of risk and showing the films at our annual Film Festival in the Briagolong Mechanics Institute as well as running short courses and displays for people to become more aware of the specific bush and grass fire risk in and around the town.

I volunteered to do the advertising campaign using posters, social media and media releases.

I developed the name “Fire in the Foothills” because Briagolong is at the base of the Great Dividing Range and most of our fires originate in the foothills.

The poster design came from a photo I took when I lived on a bush block 5km north of Briagolong and a major fire passed several kilometres north of us.

I used the same motive for posters, media releases and letterhead to keep the identity of the program consistent. (see letterhead header below).

For the footer of the letterhead, I added a photo I took of smoke blanketing the sun and coming from a number of bushfires which were approaching our town at that time, making the project current and real for the people in the town. (see letterhead footer below).