Coming out with a bang

If you’re male, aged between 15 and 18 and currently wondering if you might be gay or bisexual or know someone who is, you’d do well to call The Terrence Higgins Trust help-line: 0171-242 1010 (noon to 10pm). The charity has produced a pocket brochure to help you through the difficulties of coming out.

Designed by Dolphin, the brochure, entitled True Colours, aims to inform and reassure teenagers about being gay or bisexual. It is for young men with no contact with the gay community and is therefore designed not to be alienating.

Dolphin creative director Phil Sims has created a sensitive, discreet brochure, measuring 136 x 97mm, to accompany an ad campaign targeted at the same audience. People calling the number given in the ad receive the brochure, which arrives in a heat-sealed, semi-translucent foil wrapper to add to its mystique, while maintaining discretion.

‘It’s not an obvious brochure. It’s quite private,’ says Dolphin project manager Cressida Brown, who adds it’s not the sort of thing you might expect to see in a doctor’s surgery.

To play up the positive message about being gay, Dolphin used photography of Japanese fireworks by Akira Inoue, which it sourced through photo agency Photonica. The way the fireworks are shot adds to the ambiguity of the brochure. They’re ‘more akin to the graphics associated with club culture rather than health promotion’, according to Dolphin.

Designer: Dolphin

Client: The Terrence Higgins Trust