Karin’s Imperative

World Kindness Day is an annual international observance on November 13. For the last 5 years, TypeCampus organized Fight for Kindness, a typographic poster exhibition. I participated last year for the first time.

The curators asked artists to classify the kind of kindness they are promoting. I chose “Kindness towards oneself: The ‘right’ love for oneself generates love for others.”

Front-facing silhouette of half a person’s head and shoulders. A squiggly line in a brain shape slightly extends beyond the skull. A quote bubble in a heart shape contains the text: Tell that voice in your head to be kind to my friend. Attribution to Karin Åsman. Fight for Kindness logo in lower left corner. Jeremiah Lee text in lower right corner.

I told my friend Karin about working with a therapist to manage negative self-talk. She was sad to learn that I struggled to show myself the kindness I show others. She said the imperative sentence of this poster that I have thought about daily for the last year. It’s a commanding version of Raye’s lyrics, “You always find some kind words for a stranger. I wish that you could find some for yourself.”

The human head and shoulders are a tracing of a selfie photo. The frustrating brain squiggle was my favorite among the tens I drew while listening to I Know You’re Hurting. by Raye.

Materials

Designed using Affinity Designer 2 on iPad and Canva Affinity on macOS.

Fonts: Another Shabby, designed by Francesco Canovaro for Zetafonts, a sponsor of the exhibition

Colours Cafe’s Retro Colour Palettes

Provenance disclosure

V-AI-0: Human Only. Exclusively human creation without AI.