The CryptoRights Foundation

"Security for Human Rights Workers
& Human Rights for Security Workers"

 

Task: Marketing communications make-over for the new millennium. Redesign the website and establish visual templates for printed & e-materials consistent with these branding standards. The CryptoRights Foundation was established to secure communications for Non-Governmental Organizations such as Reporters w/o Borders.

Here's the organization ID created while first volunteering in 1998.
The rose was from a catalog and the metal shaft entirely concocted from textures I had, but modelled on a real old-fangled key that was in too poor a condition to salvage. It combines the hope of a rosebud {love + life} with the key to freedom {knowledge + access}.
Click logo to see CryptoRights current site

Website re-Design

"Textures are the Fonts of the 90's", a pithy slugline for templates Eventually, we were pulled in to meet the growing public-relations needs of the small non-profit with a long sought look-n-feel campaign. The previous site design (right) was built over time in an ad-hoc fashion and appeared fixed in amber for several years as the group focused on technology development and establishing the organization. With the notion of ever-watchful eyes a persistent message from this group a landsat image of a certain army base in the southwest I spent time on as a kid served as backdrop across the masthead. I angled the geometry for dynamism and cropped the overlarge file for placement. January 2003 saw launch of the redesigned website. Official font of the organization was determined Myriad by previous art directors- which I adore - and this slim modern font set a minimal-line clean aesthetic with a touch of warmth that lead me to the rounded-rectangle buttons seen across page + site functions.   The collage of images shows the connected nature of security and well-being and the intersection of our tools with out intentions.

 

KEEP Hope Alive

Imagine you go somewhere like Rowanda to interview victims of genocide, but when you leave that country border guards confiscate your computers, video equipment and notes... the sad fact is that most likely those survivors and witnesses will be tracked down by oppressive authorities and bullied, or killed, into silence.

Rise of the Hero-Nerd...
However, if you had encrypted the data it would appear as just so much static or digital debris inaccessible to most authorities... the beauty of encryption is the bureaucratic overhead needed to decrypt the thousands of encoded files (everything from mundane shopping lists to World Court depositions) on any one laptop is prohibitive.
Multiply that by the number of confiscations and you need to have hefty tech resources on hand to sort the pile of gear collected. Like the ending in Lucas' movie THX 1137, the costs grow too high to pursue, especially for a border guard station. For a number of years Form and Function has been developing graphic support for this very needed group starting with the Rose & Key logo created in 1998.

The symbolism speaks for itself.

 

Collateral

Form and Function was pleased to direct it's energies to reformulating the site with the executive team. Eventually this lead to a {sometimes} paying position as leader of Design & Production. What followed was a blizzard of document preparation, mostly marketing material and speaker support diagrams and illustrations. Journal #1 of the CryptoRights Foundation Besides establishing graphic standards Form and Function took up the task of bringing the long-gestating Quarterly Journal of the CryptoRights Foundation to fruition Click to download entire publication as a PDF {700K} B O N U S   M A T E R I A L Click here to review the Patriot Act editorial Jonathan Gibson wrote for Journal One.