CUPE Air Canada
This project was the second phase of the Unfair Canada CUPE campaign, highlighting how Air Canada employees worked dozens of unpaid hours.
Role
Graphic Designer
Animator
Production Artist
Agency
Point Blank
Client
CUPE Air Canada
Date
August 2025
Point blank had strategized a two-phased campaign to tackle Air Canada’s unfair employee pay. After I help build out phase one, they brought me in to spearhead phase two with their creative team.
Working from a moodboard compiled by art director Vivian Tang, I put together a visual style for the campaign that would translate well to many different assets.
The deliverables consisted of online and in-person advertisements, a website, animated video assets, and podcast covers among other smaller tasks. All of these pieces had to be designed in both English and French so word would reach the entire country.
To see the final video and learn more about the strategy behind this campaign, visit Point Blank’s project page linked below!
Campaign Asset Development
Three podcast episodes that highlighted the issues employees were facing were core components of the campaign. I created a collage that would represent each podcast throughout the collateral and reinforce the brand at every touch point.
UnPAID
Unfair
UnCANADIANBanner Ads: Set 1
I designed two distinct visuals for the brand. One was moodier with black and white photography which I built the first set of ads to match.
Banner Ads: Set 2
The other visual style uses the bold red that people visualize when thinking of Air Canada and pairs it with the collage elements developed for the podcast covers. All styles featured paper texture and headline treatments for the text to keep everything cohesive even with their differences.
Meta Ads
The meta ads were extensive and touched on the podcasts as well as the broader message. The wide reach of online ads allowed us to experiment with a variety of messaging and keep the campaign top of mind.
Digital Out Of Home Ads
The advert component of this campaign was extensive. It included several sizes of outdoor billboards (including some on the way to and from major airports) with the goal of driving people to the website where they can send an email to their MP. These needed to be quickly readable and stamp the brand in peoples’ minds to spot later.
Indoor Transit Ads
Similar to the billboards, the transit ads drove to the website and needed to be eye-catching. I tried a few fresh visual angles to further the reach.
Website Design
While the form had to stay above the fold, the rest of the web design was flexible. Using the torn paper and bold contrasting colours, I laid out an easy to understand page that emphasizes the call to action—Write in and tell your MPs how unfair Air Canada is!
Pivot Content
During this campaign, Air Canada took vicious action. They illegally locked out the employees from their benefits, stranding some in destinations they had been for work. We immediately pivoted, updating the logo and pushing both meta and banner ads to tell the public about the company’s brutal response to the request of being paid fairly.
Not long after that, the workers went on strike and we pivoted again. The logo was once more updated and more meta and banner ads were deployed. The support garnered by the public was huge. The tight turn around for these assets was absolutely worth it.
Learning Outcomes
Working with the Point Blank team was great and the project went very smoothly despite the plethora of assets, strict rules we had to adhere to, and quick turnarounds. It’s easy to put your head to the grindstone when the topic is human rights. Some great learnings I gained were the political requirements for ads such as the legal line that’s present in all the banner ads. That plus the need to keep one eye on the news for such an actively developing project made this a tremendous opportunity that I’m glad to have been a part of.